2. A lesson addedДобавлен вывод
56 passages. Each date opens its day beside the list, with the passage marked.Отрывков: 56. Каждая дата открывает свой день рядом со списком, где отрывок отмечен.
Adds a closing sentence found neither in the paragraph nor in the rest of the essay, “Such a life ruins soul and body”; usages “that have become dead to you” become customs that are “none of your concern,” Emerson’s examples, the dead church, the dead Bible-society, and the great party, are left out, and “so much force is withdrawn from your proper life” becomes spending “your best faculties on trifles.” †
Original
The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force.
It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.
If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers,—under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life.
TolstoyТолстой
Приноравливание к обычаям, до которых вам, в сущности, нет дела, — вот на что тратятся ваши силы, что лишает вас досуга и стирает всю самобытность вашей природы. При занятии таким делом как трудно распознать, что вы такое на самом деле, не говоря уже о трате на пустяки наилучших ваших способностей. Такая жизнь губит душу и тело.
Conforming to customs that are, in essence, none of your concern — that is what your strength is spent on, what robs you of leisure and wipes out all the originality of your nature. When you are occupied with such things, how hard it is to make out what you really are, to say nothing of spending your best faculties on trifles. Such a life ruins soul and body.
From Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series · reworded by Tolstoy .
Emerson’s own wordsThe objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force.
It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character.
If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers,—under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series (1841), the paragraph beginning 'The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you'.
Shortened and changed, with a sentence added. 'The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force' becomes «Приноравливание к обычаям, до которых вам, в сущности, нет дела, — вот на что тратятся ваши силы» (Conforming to customs that are in essence nothing to you: that is what your powers are spent on): 'dead to you' becomes 'nothing to you', and 'scatters' becomes 'spends'. 'It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character' becomes «что лишает вас досуга и стирает всю самобытность вашей природы» (what deprives you of leisure and wipes out all the originality of your nature). Emerson's examples, 'If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base housekeepers', are left out, and 'under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are' becomes «При занятии таким делом как трудно распознать, что вы такое на самом деле» (In such an occupation how hard it is to make out what you really are). 'And of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life' becomes «не говоря уже о трате на пустяки наилучших ваших способностей» (to say nothing of the waste of your best abilities on trifles): 'on trifles' is Tolstoy's. The last sentence, «Такая жизнь губит душу и тело» (Such a life ruins soul and body), is in neither this paragraph nor the rest of the essay. The paragraph before gave 10-12.1. The Posrednik translation «О доверии к себе» (1904), named in the Jubilee list of the Circle's sources, was not found online; it may account for some of the wording. No printable.
Adds “Be attentive to your thoughts — they are the beginning of deeds.”
Original · translated by James Legge
That which is at rest is easily kept hold of; before a thing has given indications of its presence, it is easy to take measures against it; that which is brittle is easily broken; that which is very small is easily dispersed. Action should be taken before a thing has made its appearance; order should be secured before disorder has begun.
The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
TolstoyТолстой
То, что еще спокойно, может быть удержано в покое. То, что еще не появилось, может быть легко предупреждено. То, что еще слабо, может быть легко сломано. То, чего еще мало, может быть легко рассеяно.
Заботьтесь о вещах прежде, чем они существуют. Учреждайте порядок прежде, чем начнутся беспорядки.
Толстое дерево началось с тонкого прута. Девятиэтажная башня началась с кладки малых кирпичей. Путешествие в тысячу верст начинается с одного шага. Будьте внимательны к своим мыслям — они начало поступков.
What is still at rest can be kept at rest. What has not yet appeared can easily be forestalled. What is still weak can easily be broken. What is still small can easily be scattered.
Take care of things before they exist. Set up order before disorder begins.
The thick tree began as a thin twig. The nine-story tower began with the laying of small bricks. A journey of a thousand versts begins with a single step. Be attentive to your thoughts — they are the beginning of deeds.
From Tao Te Ching · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Classical Chinese其安易持，其未兆易謀。
其脆易泮，其微易散。
為之於未有，
治之於未亂。
合抱之木，生於毫末；九層之臺，起於累土；千里之行，始於足下。
Source text: zh.wikisource.orgIn English · James Legge, 1891That which is at rest is easily kept hold of; before a thing has given indications of its presence, it is easy to take measures against it; that which is brittle is easily broken; that which is very small is easily dispersed. Action should be taken before a thing has made its appearance; order should be secured before disorder has begun.
The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Tao Te Ching, ch. 64 (first half).
Signed 'after Lao-Tzu'. The first half of ch. 64 is followed closely (the 'heap of earth' becomes 'small bricks', 'a thousand li' 'a thousand versts'); the closing 'Be attentive to your thoughts: they are the beginning of deeds' is Tolstoy's own moral, not in the chapter.
Translation note. A verst is a Russian measure of about two-thirds of a mile; Tolstoy russifies the familiar “thousand li”.
Adds a bright road opening “where no way out was to be seen.”
Original · translated by George Long
for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us on this road.
TolstoyТолстой
Препятствие на пути добра, преодоленное напряжением духа, придает мне новые силы; то что грозило быть преградой к достижению добра, само становится добром, и светлый путь открывается внезапно там, где не видно было исхода.
An obstacle on the way of good, overcome by an effort of the spirit, gives me new strength; what threatened to be a barrier to reaching the good itself becomes a good, and a bright way opens suddenly where no way out was to be seen.
From Meditations · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient Greek… περιτρέπει γὰρ καὶ μεθίστησι πᾶν τὸ τῆς ἐνεργείας κώλυμα ἡ διάνοια εἰς τὸ προηγούμενον καὶ πρὸ ἔργου γίνεται τὸ τοῦ ἔργου τούτου ἐφεκτικὸν καὶ πρὸ ὁδοῦ τὸ τῆς ὁδοῦ ταύτης ἐνστατικόν.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · George Long, 1862… for the mind converts and changes every hindrance to its activity into an aid; and so that which is a hindrance is made a furtherance to an act; and that which is an obstacle on the road helps us on this road.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Meditations, V.20.
Marcus speaks of men who obstruct one's proper acts; Tolstoy keeps only the core (the hindrance becomes a furtherance) and adds 'by an effort of spirit... gives me new strength' and the closing image of a bright road opening suddenly where no way out was seen, which is not in Marcus. Cf. also VIII.32 and VIII.35 for the same idea.
Two sentences of “Self-Reliance” are expanded into a lesson on the soul’s source.
Original
But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.
TolstoyТолстой
В наше время люди забывают, что прежде всего они должны в самих себе свято чтить человека. Высшее же свойство человека состоит в том, что при душевном равновесии сознание его способно, вступая в общение с источником разумения, сливаться с беспредельною духовной жизнью. А между тем люди, вместо того чтобы непосредственно черпать духовную пищу из этого источника, предпочитают нищенски вымаливать друг у друга по кружке застоявшейся воды.
In our time people forget that first of all they must hold sacred the man within themselves. And the highest quality of man lies in this: that when the soul is in balance, his consciousness is able, entering into communion with the source of understanding, to merge with boundless spiritual life. And yet people, instead of drawing spiritual food directly from this source, prefer to go begging from one another, like paupers, for a mug of stagnant water apiece.
From Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series · reworded by Tolstoy .
Emerson’s own wordsBut now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series (1841), Late in the essay, after 'Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within'.
An expanded paraphrase of these two sentences. 'But now we are a mob' becomes 'In our time'; 'Man does not stand in awe of man' becomes 'people forget that first of all they must hold man sacred in themselves'; 'nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean' becomes a sentence of its own, that man's highest property is that, in calm of soul, his consciousness can enter into communion with the source of reason and merge with boundless spiritual life (perhaps coloured by the essay's earlier 'the sense of being which in calm hours rises... in the soul'); and 'to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men' becomes 'to beg from one another a mug of stagnant water'. Tolstoy may have read it in the Russian «О доверии к себе» (Posrednik, 1904), which the Jubilee list of sources names.
Adds “Almost all people are in the one blindness or the other.”
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God.
TolstoyТолстой
Если неестественно ослепление людей, не старающихся узнать смысл своей жизни, то еще ужаснее ослепление верующих в бога и живущих дурно. Почти все люди находятся в том или другом ослеплении.
If the blindness of people who do not try to learn the meaning of their life is unnatural, still more terrible is the blindness of those who believe in God and live badly. Almost all people are in the one blindness or the other.
From Pensées · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchSi c'est un aveuglément surnaturel de vivre sans chercher ce qu'on est, c'en est un terrible de vivre mal, en croyant Dieu.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910If it is an extraordinary blindness to live without investigating what we are, it is a terrible one to live an evil life, while believing in God.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, Brunschvicg 495 (Section VII); Trotter 495.
The first sentence is B. 495, with Pascal's 'supernatural blindness' rendered 'unnatural' («неестественно») and 'without seeking what one is' as 'without trying to learn the meaning of their life'. The second sentence ('almost all people are in one blindness or the other') is not in Pascal's fragment in the Brunschvicg edition; it is either Tolstoy's own or from the edition he read.
The argument is restated as a law, with “the joy of labor” added.
Original · Russian
В поте лица твоего снеси хлеб твой, дондеже возвратишися в землю, от нее же взят
Поэтому я лучше за деньги найму другую женщину родить для меня дитя, или за деньги куплю готового ребенка, и он будет мой собственный, как и тот, которого я сама рожу.
Собери со всего света сокровища и отдай их за дитя, а оно не будет твоим, а как было чужое, так чужим тебе и останется.
Также и муж: и он тоже может отказаться от хлебной работы, купить деньгами один фунт хлеба; а он как был чужой, так и будет чужим.
TolstoyТолстой
«В поте лица снеси хлеб твой». Это неизменный закон физический. Женщине дан закон родить, мужчине работать. Женщина не может освободиться от своего закона. Если она усыновит не ею рожденного ребенка, это будет все-таки чужой ребенок, и она лишится радости материнства. То же с трудами мужчин. Если мужчина ест хлеб, выработанный не им, он лишается всей радости труда.
“In the sweat of thy face eat thy bread.” This is an unchanging physical law. To woman is given the law of giving birth, to man the law of working. A woman cannot free herself from her law. If she adopts a child not born of her, it will still be another’s child, and she will lose the joy of motherhood. So it is with the labors of men. If a man eats bread he has not worked for, he loses all the joy of labor.
From «Трудолюбие и тунеядство, или Торжество земледельца» · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · RussianВ поте лица твоего снеси хлеб твой, дондеже возвратишися в землю, от нее же взят …
Поэтому я лучше за деньги найму другую женщину родить для меня дитя, или за деньги куплю готового ребенка, и он будет мой собственный, как и тот, которого я сама рожу.
Собери со всего света сокровища и отдай их за дитя, а оно не будет твоим, а как было чужое, так чужим тебе и останется.
Также и муж: и он тоже может отказаться от хлебной работы, купить деньгами один фунт хлеба; а он как был чужой, так и будет чужим.
Source text: az.lib.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. «Трудолюбие и тунеядство, или Торжество земледельца» (written 1880s; Posrednik, 1906, with Tolstoy's preface), the epigraph (Gen. 3:19) and §§ 11-14.
A summary in Tolstoy's words of Bondarev's argument from Eve's and Adam's 'penances': a woman cannot buy a child and make it hers ('as it was another's, so it remains another's to you'), and a man cannot buy bread with money and make it his ('as it was another's, so it stays another's'). Tolstoy states it as 'an unchanging physical law' and replaces Bondarev's 'it stays another's' with the loss of 'the joy of motherhood' and 'all the joy of labour', which are not in Bondarev. The 1888 abridgment in «Русское дело», edited by Tolstoy, was not checked. No public-domain English translation is given (the 1890 English versions were made from the French).
Translation note. Genesis 3:19, quoted in Church Slavonic («снеси», “eat”); the KJV has “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”.
The sage’s verse becomes a prose answer, and the moral a sentence of its own.
Original
Once upon a time the fishes of a certain river took counsel together, and said,
They tell us that our life and being is from the water, but we have never seen water, and know not what it is
heard that there dwelleth in the sea a very wise and learned fish who knoweth all things ; let us journey to him, and ask him to shew us water, or explain unto us what it is.
Ye live in God, yet know him not.
TolstoyТолстой
Услышали раз рыбы в реке, что люди говорят, что рыбы могут жить только в воде. И, услыхав это, рыбы очень удивились и стали спрашивать друг у друга, не знает ли кто, что такое вода. Тогда одна умная рыба сказала: «Говорят, в море живет старая мудрая и ученая рыба, она всё знает, поплывем к ней и спросим у нее, что такое вода». И вот поплыли рыбы в море к тому месту, где жила мудрая рыба, и спросили ее, что такое вода и как узнать ее. И старая мудрая рыба сказала: «Вода — это то, чем мы живем, в чем живем. Вы оттого и не знаете воды, что живете в ней и живете ею».
Так и люди не знают бога, тогда как — живут им и живут в нем.
Once the fish in a river heard people saying that fish can live only in water. And when they heard this, the fish were greatly astonished and began asking one another whether anyone knew what water was. Then one clever fish said, “They say that in the sea there lives an old fish, wise and learned, that knows everything; let us swim to it and ask it what water is.” And so the fish swam to the sea, to the place where the wise fish lived, and asked it what water was and how to come to know it. And the old wise fish said, “Water is that by which we live, in which we live. You do not know water precisely because you live in it and live by it.”
So too people do not know God, and yet — they live by him and live in him.
Sufi.
From 'The Parable of the Fishes', in E. H. Palmer, Oriental Mysticism: a treatise on the Sufi… · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred AnthologyOnce upon a time the fishes of a certain river took counsel together, and said, …
… there dwelleth in the sea a very wise and learned fish who knoweth all things ; let us journey to him, and ask him to show us water, or explain unto us what it is.
Ye live in God, yet know him not.
Source text: archive.orgSufi’s own wordsOnce upon a time the fishes of a certain river took counsel together, and said, …
They tell us that our life and being is from the water, but we have never seen water, and know not what it is …
… heard that there dwelleth in the sea a very wise and learned fish who knoweth all things ; let us journey to him, and ask him to shew us water, or explain unto us what it is.
Ye live in God, yet know him not.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. 'The Parable of the Fishes', in E. H. Palmer, Oriental Mysticism: a treatise on the Sufiistic and Unitarian theosophy of the Persians (Cambridge, 1867), ch. I; reprinted by Conway, The Sacred Anthology, no. CIX, Palmer pp. 48-49; Conway (1874) no. CIX 'The Unrecognised' (index: Persian).
The story follows Palmer/Conway closely up to the wise fish's answer. There the sage replies in verse ('O ye who seek to solve the knot! Ye live in God, yet know him not. Ye sit upon the river's brink, Yet crave in vain a drop to drink ...'); Tolstoy replaces the verse with a prose answer ('water is that by which and in which we live; you do not know it because you live in it') and adds the moral as a separate paragraph ('so people do not know God, though they live by him and in him'). Palmer's ironic close (the fishes go home satisfied, 'since thou hast shown us what water is not') is dropped.
Adds “men will only wonder why their forefathers labored so long over these useless, evil works.”
Original
Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be superseded by this unarmed child.
TolstoyТолстой
Любовь даст новый вид этому усталому, старому миру, в котором мы живем, как язычники и враги друг друга; она согреет сердце так, что люди скоро увидят, как легко исчезнут и тщетная дипломатия государственных людей, и огромные армии, и флоты, и линии крепостей, и люди только будут удивляться, зачем так долго предки их трудились над этими ни на что ненужными, дурными делами.
Love will put a new face on this weary old world, in which we live as pagans and enemies of one another; it will so warm the heart that men will soon see how easily the vain diplomacy of statesmen, and the huge armies, and fleets, and lines of fortresses will all vanish; and men will only wonder why their forefathers labored so long over these useless, evil works.
From Man the Reformer, a lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association,… · reworded by Tolstoy .
Emerson’s own wordsLove would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long, and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies, and navies, and lines of defence, would be superseded by this unarmed child.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Man the Reformer, a lecture read before the Mechanics' Apprentices' Library Association, Boston, 25 January 1841, The paragraph beginning 'Let our affection flow out to our fellows'.
The first half is close ('Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long'), but 'the impotence of armies' becomes 'the huge armies', 'would be superseded by this unarmed child' (love) becomes 'how easily ... will vanish', and Tolstoy adds a closing clause Emerson does not have: 'and people will only wonder why their ancestors laboured so long at these useless, evil works'. That clause was not found anywhere in Emerson's Gutenberg texts (Essays I-II, Nature, Miscellanies, Society and Solitude, Letters and Social Aims, Conduct of Life, Lectures and Biographical Sketches, Natural History of Intellect). 12-16.4 comes from the same paragraph, a few sentences later.
Adds “do not listen to the end, and try to forget what you have heard,” and a closing lesson: a spiteful word about one’s neighbor hurts “as if you had struck yourself.”
Original
On hearing persons talk of man's wickedness, par take not their pleasure.
On hearing men speak of the virtues of mankind, approve, follow, and rejoice therein.
On hearing of the wickedness of mankind, let it be to you as thorns penetrating the back.
Then the heart will never cease thinking thereon, and the feet never cease walking in the right path.
TolstoyТолстой
Когда услышишь, как люди говорят о порочности других людей, не разделяй их удовольствия. Когда услышишь о дурных делах людей, не дослушивай до конца и старайся забыть то, что услышал. Слушая же разговоры о добродетели людей, запоминай и рассказывай.
Делай так, и скоро ты так привыкнешь к этому, что когда услышишь о зле людей, то это будет для тебя так же больно, как если бы бранили тебя самого, и, когда сорвется у тебя с языка злое слово о ближнем, тебе будет это так же больно, как если бы ты сам ударил себя.
When you hear people talk of the depravity of others, do not share their pleasure. When you hear of people’s bad deeds, do not listen to the end, and try to forget what you have heard. But when you listen to talk of people’s virtue, remember it and tell it to others.
Do this, and you will soon grow so used to it that when you hear of the evil in people, it will hurt you as much as if you yourself were being reviled, and when a spiteful word about your neighbor slips from your tongue, it will hurt you as much as if you had struck yourself.
From Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred Anthology · reworded by Tolstoy .
From an Eastern language’s own wordsOn hearing persons talk of man's wickedness, par take not their pleasure.
On hearing men speak of the virtues of mankind, approve, follow, and rejoice therein.
On hearing of the wickedness of mankind, let it be to you as thorns penetrating the back.
Then the heart will never cease thinking thereon, and the feet never cease walking in the right path.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred Anthology (London, Trübner, 1874), no. CCCCXXXI 'Mankind', Conway p. 284; margin 'Chinese', with an author's name read by the scan as 'Kang-Tsze Chow'.
Built on three of Conway's sentences: 'on hearing persons talk of man's wickedness, partake not their pleasure'; 'on hearing men speak of the virtues of mankind, approve, follow, and rejoice therein' (Tolstoy: 'remember it and tell it'); and 'on hearing of the wickedness of mankind, let it be to you as thorns penetrating the back', which becomes the promise that hearing of evil will hurt 'as if you yourself were abused'. Tolstoy adds 'do not listen to the end and try to forget it' and the last clause (an evil word about a neighbour will hurt like striking yourself); he drops slander and flattery, the rejoicing over good men and good principles, and the garland of flowers. Conway's source is marked only 'Chinese' with a name the scan garbles; it was not identified.
Ballou’s opening question, how many it takes “to annul the commandments of God,” becomes the closing one, the argument’s conclusion.
Original
How many does it take to annul the commandments of God, and render that lawful, which HE has forbidden? How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness?
One man must not kill. If he does it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent.
But how many does it take? This is the question. Just so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all other crimes.
Non-Resistance Tract No. II
TolstoyТолстой
Один человек не должен убивать. Если он убил, он преступник, он убийца. Два, десять, сто человек, если они делают это, они убийцы. Но государство или народ может убивать сколько он хочет, и это не будет убийство, а хорошее, доброе дело. Только собрать побольше народа, и бойня десятков тысяч людей становится невинным делом. Но сколько именно нужно людей для этого? Вот в чем вопрос. Один не может красть, грабить, но целый народ может. Но сколько именно нужно для этого? Почему один, десять, сто человек не должны нарушать законы бога, а очень много могут?
One man must not kill. If he has killed, he is a criminal, he is a murderer. Two, ten, a hundred men, if they do it, are murderers. But a state or a nation may kill as many as it likes, and this will not be murder, but a good, kind deed. Only gather enough people together, and the slaughter of tens of thousands of people becomes an innocent affair. But exactly how many people are needed for this? That is the question. One man may not steal or rob, but a whole nation may. But exactly how many are needed for this? Why must one, ten, a hundred men not break the laws of God, while very many may?
From How Many Does It Take? · reworded by Tolstoy .
Adin Ballou’s own wordsHow many does it take to annul the commandments of God, and render that lawful, which HE has forbidden? How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness?
One man must not kill. If he does it is murder. Two, ten, one hundred men, acting on their own responsibility, must not kill. If they do, it is still murder. But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is no murder. It is just, necessary, commendable and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent.
But how many does it take? This is the question. Just so with theft, robbery, burglary, and all other crimes.
Non-Resistance Tract No. II
Source text: web.archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · «Царство Божие внутри вас»Один человек не должен убивать. Если он убил, он преступник, он убийца. Два, десять, сто человек, если они делают это, — они убийцы.
Почему 1, 10, 100 человек не должны нарушать закона бога, а очень много могут?
Source text: ru.wikisource.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. How Many Does It Take? (Non-Resistance Tract No. II, Hopedale, Community Press); Tolstoy's Russian of it in «Царство Божие внутри вас» (1893), ch. I, The tract's first three paragraphs.
The Circle takes Tolstoy's own Russian of 1893 almost word for word. Against Ballou's English it is shortened and reordered: 'If he does it is murder' becomes 'he is a criminal, he is a murderer'; 'acting on their own responsibility' and 'It is just, necessary, commendable and right' are left out; so are man-stealing, the nation that robs a city, the ministers who pray for it, and the paragraphs on Texas and on Alexander's pirate; and Ballou's opening question, 'How many does it take to annul the commandments of God, and render that lawful, which HE has forbidden?', becomes Tolstoy's closing one. The English is the Friends of Adin Ballou's transcription of the Hopedale tract (adinballou.org, saved from the Wayback Machine); no scan of the printed tract was found, and the transcription gives no date. January 22 is one of the days from which the censor removed thoughts in the 1906 first edition (Jubilee vol. 42, § on the editions); the commentary does not say which thoughts, and whether this was one of them was not established.
Adds that the believer “tries by his deeds to build his life out of such thoughts and feelings as best answer to the aims of the good”; belief in the reality of the spirit loses “в действительность этой небесной жизни,” in the reality of this heavenly life, and “имея свободу идти,” having freedom to go, becomes “having in himself the power to go.”
Original · Russian
Все дело в этом: верить или не верить в действительность духа, в действительность этой небесной жизни.
Люди разделяются в духовном отношении на живых и мертвых, т. е. на верующих и неверующих.
Вера в действительность духовной или небесной жизни дает другое направление мыслям человека.
Среди людей нет ни совершенных жителей тьмы, ни совершенных жителей света, а все на распутьи и каждый, имея свободу идти, идет туда или сюда
TolstoyТолстой
Всё дело в том: верить или не верить в действительность духа. Люди разделяются в духовном отношении на живых и мертвых, т. е. на верующих и неверующих.
Неверующий говорит: «Какой там дух... А вот что съел, насладился, то и мое!» И он, много не думая, заботится только о внешнем, делая свои плотские и злые дела, лжет, величается, рабствует и не чувствует в себе потребностей высших: свободы, правды, любви. Такой человек хоронится от света разума, потому что мертв и потому что свет только живому дает жизнь, а мертвое сушит и гноит.
Вера в действительность духовной жизни дает другое направление мыслям человека.
Верующий в духовную жизнь обращает внимание свое во внутрь, старается разобраться в своих чувствах, в своих мыслях, старается направить свою жизнь сообразно с высшими требованиями: сделать ее свободной, правдивой, любовной; старается своими поступками слагать жизнь свою из таких мыслей и чувств, которые наиболее соответствуют целям добра. Такой человек ищет истину и тянется к свету, потому что жизнь духа невозможна без света разума, как жизнь мира видимого невозможна без света солнца.
Среди людей нет ни совершенных жителей тьмы, ни совершенных жителей света, а все на распутье, и каждый, имея в себе власть идти, идет туда или сюда. И всякий, верующий в действительность духа, живущий под светом разума, пребывает в царстве бога и имеет жизнь вечную.
The whole matter lies in this: to believe or not to believe in the reality of the spirit. In the spiritual sense, people are divided into the living and the dead, that is, into believers and unbelievers.
The unbeliever says: “Spirit, indeed… But what I have eaten and enjoyed, that is mine!” And without much thought he cares only for what is outward, doing his carnal and evil deeds; he lies, gives himself airs, is servile, and does not feel in himself the higher needs: for freedom, truth, love. Such a man hides from the light of reason, because he is dead, and because light gives life only to what is living, and withers and rots what is dead.
Faith in the reality of the spiritual life gives a man’s thoughts another direction.
The believer in the spiritual life turns his attention inward, tries to sort out his feelings, his thoughts, tries to direct his life according to the higher demands: to make it free, truthful, loving; he tries by his deeds to build his life out of such thoughts and feelings as best answer to the aims of the good. Such a man seeks the truth and reaches toward the light, because the life of the spirit is impossible without the light of reason, as the life of the visible world is impossible without the light of the sun.
Among people there are neither those who dwell wholly in darkness nor those who dwell wholly in light; all are at the crossroads, and each, having in himself the power to go, goes this way or that. And everyone who believes in the reality of the spirit and lives under the light of reason abides in the kingdom of God and has eternal life.
Buka.
From Кому служить? · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · RussianВсе дело в этом: верить или не верить в действительность духа, в действительность этой небесной жизни.
Люди разделяются в духовном отношении на живых и мертвых, т. е. на верующих и неверующих.
Вера в действительность духовной или небесной жизни дает другое направление мыслям человека.
Среди людей нет ни совершенных жителей тьмы, ни совершенных жителей света, а все на распутьи и каждый, имея свободу идти, идет туда или сюда …
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Кому служить? (printed Burgas, then Moscow, 1920), pp. 120–121 of the Moscow printing.
Found while April was being made (work/april/trace/weekly-goodness.json found the book). Arkhangelsky’s passage, cut and changed. Tolstoy drops «в действительность этой небесной жизни» (in the reality of this heavenly life) and «или небесной» (or heavenly); the unbeliever’s «употребил» (consumed) becomes «насладился» (enjoyed); «Верующий побуждается верою к высшей жизни, в которую верит» (the believer is moved by faith toward the higher life he believes in) becomes «Верующий в духовную жизнь»; «имея свободу идти» (having freedom to go) becomes «имея в себе власть идти» (having in himself the power to go). He leaves out the sentence on the light of reason as the commandment «Я есмь Господь Бог твой» and the closing prophecy that the dead will hear the voice of the spirit, and adds two clauses of his own: «старается своими поступками слагать жизнь свою из таких мыслей и чувств, которые наиболее соответствуют целям добра» and «как жизнь мира видимого невозможна без света солнца». The 1920 text is dated 1906, and Tolstoy read the book in manuscript in 1897 and 1904, so some of these differences may be the author’s later revision.
Translation note. «Бука», given as Tolstoy wrote it, is the pen name of A. I. Arkhangelsky: the Jubilee editors’ list of the Circle’s sources includes his manuscript «Кому служить?» (“Whom to Serve?”), published in Moscow in 1920.
Adds a second paragraph: we must find out what in us is immortal and care for it more than for what is mortal, “yet people usually do exactly the opposite.”
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is.
TolstoyТолстой
Кончается ли наша жизнь со смертью, это вопрос самый большой важности, и нельзя не думать об этом. Смотря по тому, верим ли мы или нет в бессмертие, и поступки наши будут разумны или бессмысленны.
Поэтому главная наша забота должна быть в том, чтобы решить вопрос: совсем или не совсем умираем мы в плотской смерти, и, если не совсем, то что именно в нас бессмертно. Когда же мы поймем, что есть в нас то, что смертно, и то, что бессмертно, то ясно, что и заботиться мы в этой жизни должны больше о том, что бессмертно, чем о том, что смертно. Люди же обыкновенно поступают как раз обратно.
Whether our life ends with death is a question of the very greatest importance, and one cannot help thinking about it. According to whether or not we believe in immortality, our actions will be reasonable or senseless.
Therefore our chief concern must be to settle the question whether we die wholly or not wholly in the death of the body, and, if not wholly, what exactly in us is immortal. And once we understand that there is in us that which is mortal and that which is immortal, then it is clear that in this life we must care more for what is immortal than for what is mortal. Yet people usually do exactly the opposite.
From Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg, section III · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchL’immortalité de l’âme est une chose qui nous importe si fort, qui nous touche si profondément, qu’il faut avoir perdu tout sentiment pour être dans l’indifférence de savoir ce qui en est.
Ainsi notre premier intérêt et notre premier devoir est de nous éclaircir sur ce sujet, d’où dépend toute notre conduite ; …
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910The immortality of the soul is a matter which is of so great consequence to us, and which touches us so profoundly, that we must have lost all feeling to be indifferent as to knowing what it is.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg, section III, Br. 194.
The first paragraph follows Pascal loosely. The second paragraph’s question of what in us is mortal and what immortal, and the duty to care more for the immortal, are Tolstoy’s, signed «По Паскалю».
Adds a first sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “Man can please God only by a good life,” and widens “good moral conduct” to “a good, pure, kind, humble life.”
Original · translated by J. W. Semple
I lay down the following preliminary position, as one requiring no proof. EVERYTHING MANKIND FANCIES HE CAN DO, OVER AND ABOVE GOOD MORAL CONDUCT, IN ORDER TO MAKE HIMSELF ACCEPTABLE TO GOD, IS MERE FALSE WORSHIP OF THE Deity.
TolstoyТолстой
Человек может угодить богу только хорошей жизнью. И потому всё, чем, кроме хорошей, чистой, доброй, смиренной жизни, человек думает угодить богу, всё это один обман и ложное служение богу.
Man can please God only by a good life. And therefore everything by which man thinks to please God, apart from a good, pure, kind, humble life, all of it is nothing but deception and false service of God.
From Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · GermanIch nehme erstlich folgenden Satz als einen keines Beweises benötigten Grundsatz an: alles, was außer dem guten Lebenswandel der Mensch noch tun zu können vermeint, um Gott wohlgefällig zu werden, ist bloßer Religionswahn und Afterdienst Gottes.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · J. W. Semple, 1838I lay down the following preliminary position, as one requiring no proof. EVERYTHING MANKIND FANCIES HE CAN DO, OVER AND ABOVE GOOD MORAL CONDUCT, IN ORDER TO MAKE HIMSELF ACCEPTABLE TO GOD, IS MERE FALSE WORSHIP OF THE Deity.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Путь жизниЧеловек может угодить богу только хорошей жизнью. И потому всё то, чем, кроме хорошей, чистой, доброй жизни, человек думает угодить богу, всё это грубый и вредный обман.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793), Book IV, Part 2, § 2, as excerpted in Raoul Richter, Kant-Aussprüche (1901), Kant-Aussprüche no. 241; Semple (1838), Book IV, Part 2, Section II.
Tolstoy turns Kant's principle into two sentences. He adds a first one of his own deriving it («Человек может угодить богу только хорошей жизнью»), widens "good conduct of life" (dem guten Lebenswandel) to «хорошей, чистой, доброй, смиренной жизни» (good, pure, kind, humble life), and renders "mere religious delusion and pseudo-service of God" (bloßer Religionswahn und Afterdienst Gottes) as «один обман и ложное служение богу» (only a deception and false service of God). Kant's opening ("I take the following as a principle needing no proof") is left out. *The Path of Life* prints it again, ending «грубый и вредный обман».
Translation note. The Russian italic is broken at the commas, and in the digitization also inside two words («угодит_ь», «обма_н»), a slip mended here; the English sets the whole thought as one span.
The chapter’s mutual dependence of reason and a good life is kept, and the last three sentences are added: “The one helps the other,” and each that does not help the other is not real.
Original · translated by James Legge
'When we have intelligence resulting from sincerity, this condition is to be ascribed to nature; when we have sincerity resulting from intelligence, this condition is to be ascribed to instruction. But given the sincerity, and there shall be the intelligence; given the intelligence, and there shall be the sincerity
TolstoyТолстой
Разум может проясняться только в добром человеке. Человек может быть добрым, только когда в нем прояснен разум. Для доброй жизни нужен свет разума, для света разума нужна добрая жизнь. Одно помогает другому. И потому, если разум не помогает доброй жизни, это не настоящий разум. И если жизнь не помогает разуму, то это не добрая жизнь.
Reason can grow clear only in a good man. A man can be good only when reason has grown clear in him. For a good life the light of reason is needed; for the light of reason a good life is needed. The one helps the other. And so, if reason does not help a good life, it is not real reason. And if life does not help reason, it is not a good life.
From Zhongyong · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · G. Pauthier, Confucius et Mencius: Les quatre livres de philosophie morale et politique …La perfection morale suppose la haute lumière de l'intelligence; la haute lumière de l'intelligence suppose la perfection morale.
Source text: gutenberg.orgIn English · James Legge, 1893'When we have intelligence resulting from sincerity, this condition is to be ascribed to nature; when we have sincerity resulting from intelligence, this condition is to be ascribed to instruction. But given the sincerity, and there shall be the intelligence; given the intelligence, and there shall be the sincerity …
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean), ch. 21.
Pauthier's 'perfection morale' becomes 'добрая жизнь' and 'la haute lumière de l'intelligence' 'свет разума'. The mutual dependence is the chapter's; the last three sentences ('Одно помогает другому ...') are Tolstoy's own.
Adds the last clause: once you understand that all passes, “you will know that which is and does not pass away.”
Original · Classical Chinese
佛言：「睹天地念非常，睹山川念非常
TolstoyТолстой
Взгляни на небо и на землю и подумай: всё это преходяще, все эти и горы, и реки, и различные формы жизни, и произведения природы. Всё это преходит. Как только ты ясно поймешь это, тотчас явится просветление, и ты узнаешь то, чтó есть и не преходит.
Look at the sky and at the earth, and consider: all this is passing — all these mountains, and rivers, and the various forms of life, and the works of nature. All this passes away. As soon as you clearly understand this, enlightenment will come at once, and you will know that which is and does not pass away.
From Sutra in Forty-two Sections · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred AnthologyLet one behold heaven and earth, and think, ' These are impermanent' — and so the mountains and rivers, the varied forms of life and the productions of nature, all passing away! Attaining to this condition of mind, in a moment there will be illumination.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Sutra in Forty-two Sections, the section on impermanence.
Conway's English (after Beal), closely, to 'in a moment there will be illumination'. The last clause, 'и ты узнаешь то, чтó есть и не преходит', is Tolstoy's own. The Chinese ends 'holding the mind thus, one attains the Way quickly'.
Rousseau’s “every idler is a thief” is followed by a lesson of Tolstoy’s own: everyone must learn manual labor, and the joy of rest is the greater the harder the work.
Original · translated by Barbara Foxley
Man in society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler is a thief.
TolstoyТолстой
Богатый и бедный, сильный и слабый, всякий неработающий человек — негодяй. Всякий человек должен научиться мастерству, настоящему ручному труду. Только работая можно узнать одну из лучших, чистых радостей. Отдых после труда и радость эта тем больше, чем тяжелее труд.
Rich or poor, strong or weak, every man who does not work is a scoundrel. Every man must learn a craft, real manual labor. Only by working can one come to know one of the best, purest joys. Rest after labor, and this joy, are the greater the harder the labor.
From Émile, ou De l’éducation, livre III · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchTravailler est donc un devoir indispensable à l’homme social. Riche ou pauvre, puissant ou foible, tout citoyen oisif est un fripon.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · Barbara Foxley, 1911Man in society is bound to work; rich or poor, weak or strong, every idler is a thief.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Émile, ou De l’éducation, livre III, Livre III, on the duty of work (1782 edition).
The first sentence is Rousseau’s: "riche ou pauvre, puissant ou foible, tout citoyen oisif est un fripon" (Tolstoy: «негодяй»). The rest (everyone must learn a trade, real handwork; the joy of rest after labor, greater the harder the work) is Tolstoy’s development, signed «По Руссо»; Émile III argues for a manual trade but has no such sentences here.
The cannibals’ reason is dropped, and the anecdote ends in a lesson: they could not understand the traveler’s outcry, as meat-eaters do not understand the vegetarians’ indignation.
Original
visiting a tribe of cannibals in Africa while they were feeding on human flesh
"It is delicious with salt," said the chief.
"This is horrible!" But answers the civilized flesh eater: "It is delicious with salt."
TolstoyТолстой
Один путешественник подошел к африканским людоедам в то время, как они ели какое-то мясо. Он спросил их, что они едят? Они отвечали, что мясо это было человеческое.
«Неужели вы можете есть это?» — вскрикнул путешественник. «Отчего же, с солью очень вкусно», — отвечали ему африканцы. Они так привыкли к тому, что делали, что даже не могли понять, к чему относилось восклицание путешественника.
Так же не понимают мясоеды того возмущения, которое испытывают вегетарианцы, при виде свиней, ягнят, быков, поедаемых только потому, что мясо это вкусно с солью.
A traveler came up to some African cannibals while they were eating some kind of meat. He asked them what they were eating. They answered that the meat was human.
“Can you really eat that?” cried the traveler. “Why not? With salt it is very tasty,” the Africans answered him. They were so used to what they were doing that they could not even understand what the traveler’s exclamation was about.
In just the same way meat-eaters do not understand the indignation that vegetarians feel at the sight of pigs, lambs, and oxen eaten only because their meat is tasty with salt.
From The World's Advance-Thought and the Universal Republic · reworded by Tolstoy .
After Lucy Mallory’s own words… visiting a tribe of cannibals in Africa while they were feeding on human flesh …
"It is delicious with salt," said the chief.
"This is horrible!" But answers the civilized flesh eater: "It is delicious with salt."
Source text: iapsop.comDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The World's Advance-Thought and the Universal Republic (Lucy A. Mallory's journal), unsigned editorial paragraph (Portland, Oregon), vol. XV, no. 1, March 1902, p. 10, after 'Mental Creations'.
The same anecdote, retold. Mallory's cannibals give a reason, that men bathe three times a day and animals never; Tolstoy drops it, has the traveller ask what they are eating, and adds that they could not understand his outcry. Her close, 'It would be hard to see where any distinction comes in', becomes Tolstoy's: flesh-eaters do not understand the vegetarians' revulsion at pigs, lambs, and bulls eaten only because the meat tastes good with salt. The paragraph is unsigned among the editor's pages, so the attribution stands.
Adds an opening, “If you want God’s mercy, show your deeds,” and a close: for a rich man, to show love in deed “means to give up his wealth.”
Original · translated by Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. 14 (ed. Philip Schaff)
Perhaps like that rich man some of my hearers will say, "that we also have kept these, for we neither have robbed, nor killed, nor committed adultery"; yet assuredly thou wilt not be able to say this, that thou hast loved thy neighbor as thou oughtest to have loved him.
Now Christ hath commanded not only this, but something besides. What then is this?
for one who lived in such superfluity, and regarded not others living in poverty,
TolstoyТолстой
Если хочешь милости божьей, покажи дела. Но, может быть, и теперь кто-нибудь, как богатый юноша, скажет: «Я всё исполнил: не крал, не убивал, не любодействовал». Но Христос сказал, что нужно не это только, а еще что-то другое. Что же такое? «Продай, — говорит, — имение твое и дай нищим, и иди за мною» (Мф. гл. 19, ст. 21). Идти же за ним значит — подражать ему в делах. В каких делах? В любви к ближнему. А если юноша, живя в таком изобилии, мог не раздать свое имение бедным, то как же он мог сказать, что любит ближнего? Если любовь сильна и не на одних словах, то она покажет себя на деле. А богатому показать любовь на деле значит — отказаться от богатства.
If you want God’s mercy, show your deeds. But perhaps even now someone, like the rich young man, will say: “I have fulfilled it all: I have not stolen, I have not killed, I have not committed adultery.” But Christ said that not this alone is needed, but something else besides. What, then? “Sell,” he says, “your possessions, and give to the poor, and follow me” (Matthew 19:21). And to follow him means to imitate him in deeds. In what deeds? In love for one’s neighbor. And if the young man, living in such abundance, could refrain from giving away his possessions to the poor, then how could he say that he loved his neighbor? If love is strong, and not in words alone, it will show itself in deed. And for a rich man, to show love in deed means to give up his wealth.
From Homilies on the Gospel of John · reworded by Tolstoy .
In English · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. 14 (ed. Philip Schaff), 1889Perhaps like that rich man some of my hearers will say, "that we also have kept these, for we neither have robbed, nor killed, nor committed adultery"; yet assuredly thou wilt not be able to say this, that thou hast loved thy neighbor as thou oughtest to have loved him.
Now Christ hath commanded not only this, but something besides. What then is this?
… for one who lived in such superfluity, and regarded not others living in poverty, …
Source text: ccel.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily XXXIX (on John 5:23–24), close.
Kept: hearers who say like the rich young man "we have not stolen, killed, or committed adultery"; Christ commanded something more, "Sell what thou hast"; following him means imitating him in deeds; one who lived in such plenty and gave nothing could not love his neighbor. Tolstoy adds the opening ("If you want God's mercy, show deeds") and the close ("for the rich to show love in deed is to give up wealth"), and drops the clause on envy and slander. The Greek was not saved.
Translation note. The rich young man: Matthew 19:16–22. In verse 21 the KJV has “go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.”
Adds “true good is good only when it is done not for another but for oneself,” and Marcus’s vine, which “seeks for nothing more” after its grapes, becomes a fruit tree “fully content that those who need its fruit make use of it.”
Original · translated by George Long
One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred.
Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done.
A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit.
TolstoyТолстой
Одни люди, если сделают кому-нибудь услугу, ждут себе за это награду или благодарность; другие, хотя и не ждут награды и благодарности, все-таки не забывают того, что они сделали, и считают тех, кому они сделали добро, своими должниками. Но истинное добро — добро только тогда, когда оно сделано не для другого, а для себя, и человек, сделавший его, не ищет награды, а делает добро так, как плодовое дерево, когда оно вырастит свои плоды и вполне довольно тем, что плодами этими пользуются те, кому они нужны.
Some people, when they have done someone a service, expect a reward or gratitude for it; others, though they do not expect reward or gratitude, still do not forget what they have done, and consider those to whom they have done good their debtors. But true good is good only when it is done not for another but for oneself, and the man who has done it seeks no reward but does good as a fruit tree does when it has grown its fruit and is fully content that those who need its fruit make use of it.
From Meditations · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient GreekὉ μέν τίς ἐστιν, ὅταν τι δεξιὸν περί τινα πράξῃ, πρόχειρος καὶ λογίσασθαι αὐτῷ τὴν χάριν.
… ὁ δὲ πρὸς μὲν τοῦτο οὐ πρόχειρος, ἄλλως μέντοι παρ’ ἑαυτῷ ὡς περὶ χρεώστου διανοεῖται καὶ οἶδεν ὃ πεποίηκεν.
… ὁ δέ τις τρόπον τινὰ οὐδὲ οἶδεν ὃ πεποίηκεν, ἀλλὰ ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀμπέλῳ βότρυν ἐνεγκούσῃ καὶ μηδὲν ἄλλο προσεπιζητούσῃ μετὰ τὸ ἅπαξ τὸν ἴδιον καρπὸν ἐνηνοχέναι.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · George Long, 1862One man, when he has done a service to another, is ready to set it down to his account as a favor conferred.
Another is not ready to do this, but still in his own mind he thinks of the man as his debtor, and he knows what he has done.
A third in a manner does not even know what he has done, but he is like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more after it has once produced its proper fruit.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньЕсть люди, которые, оказав кому-нибудь услугу, тотчас считают себя вправе ожидать за нее награду; другие, не рассчитывая на прямую награду, ни на минуту, однако, не забывают оказанной услуги и в душе своей признают, что у них есть должники; …
… эти подобны виноградной лозе, которая, вырастив свои грозди, вполне удовлетворена тем, что созрел на ней ей одной свойственный плод ее.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Meditations, V.6.
Reworked from Tolstoy's version in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), September 20, which follows V.6 closely. Kept: one man sets a service down as a favour owed him; another does not, but thinks of the man as his debtor. Changed: Marcus's third man "does not even know what he has done" and is "like a vine which has produced grapes, and seeks for nothing more"; the 1903 text keeps the vine. Here the vine becomes «плодовое дерево» (a fruit tree), and its contentment at having borne its own fruit becomes «вполне довольно тем, что плодами этими пользуются те, кому они нужны» (content that those who need its fruit use it). Tolstoy adds a sentence of his own: «Но истинное добро — добро только тогда, когда оно сделано не для другого, а для себя». Marcus's horse, hound, and bee, and his exchange on whether a man should notice his own good act, are dropped.
Adds “With this same bait men too are caught” and a closing lesson, “Do you want to be free? First of all free yourself from the belly”; the slave of his belly who “seldom worships God” becomes “always a slave.”
Original · translated by Francis Gladwin
But for the cravings of the belly, not a bird would have fallen into the snare ; nay, the fowler would not have spread his net.
The belly is chains to the hands and fetters to the feet. He who is a slave to his belly, seldom worships God.
TolstoyТолстой
Если бы не жадность, ни одна птица не попала бы в сети. На эту же приманку ловят и людей. Брюхо — это цепь на руки и кандалы на ноги. Раб брюха — всегда раб. Хочешь быть свободен — прежде всего освобождай себя от брюха. Ешь для того, чтобы утолить голод, а не для того, чтобы получить удовольствие.
If it were not for greed, not one bird would fall into the net. With this same bait men too are caught. The belly is a chain on the hands and fetters on the feet. The slave of the belly is always a slave. Do you want to be free? First of all free yourself from the belly. Eat to satisfy hunger, and not to get pleasure.
From Gulistan · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred AnthologyBut for the cravings of the belly, not a bird would …
… have fallen into the snare ; nay, the fowler would not have spread his net.
The belly is chains to the hands and fetters to the feet.
He who is a slave to his belly seldom worships God.
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · Persianگر جور شکم نیستی، هیچ مرغ در دام صیاد نیوفتادی بلکه صیاد خود دام ننهادی.
Source text: api.ganjoor.netIn English · Francis Gladwin, 1806But for the cravings of the belly, not a bird would have fallen into the snare ; nay, the fowler would not have spread his net.
The belly is chains to the hands and fetters to the feet. He who is a slave to his belly, seldom worships God.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Gulistan, ch. VIII, maxim 51 (Gladwin).
Gladwin's maxim, through Conway ('Temperance'), signed «По Саади», with sentences of Tolstoy's own. He keeps the bird and the net, with «жадность» (greed) for 'the cravings of the belly', and 'The belly is chains to the hands and fetters to the feet'. He adds «На эту же приманку ловят и людей» (men are caught with the same bait); for 'He who is a slave to his belly seldom worships God' he writes «Раб брюха — всегда раб» (the belly's slave is always a slave); and he ends with «Хочешь быть свободен — прежде всего освобождай себя от брюха. Ешь для того, чтобы утолить голод, а не для того, чтобы получить удовольствие.» Ganjoor's Persian has the first sentence only; the sentence on chains and fetters, which Gladwin translates, is not in its text.
Saadi’s second sentence, that with “an eye capable of discerning God” the boaster “would not discover any person weaker than himself,” gives way to one of Tolstoy’s own: “It would be better for him to be blind than to see only himself.”
Original · translated by Francis Gladwin
The boaster sees nothing but himself, having a veil of conceit before his eyes.
If he was endowed with an eye capable of discerning God, he would not discover any person weaker than himself.
TolstoyТолстой
Тот, кто хвалится, ничего не видит, кроме себя. Лучше бы ему быть слепым, чем видеть только себя.
He who boasts sees nothing but himself. It would be better for him to be blind than to see only himself.
From Gulistan · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Moncure D. Conway, The Sacred Anthology… nothing but himself, having a veil of conceit before his eyes.
If he was endowed with an eye capable of discerning God, he would not discern any person …
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · Persianنبیند مدّعی جز خویشتن را
که دارد پردهٔ پندار در پیش
گرت چشمِ خدا بینی ببخشند
نبینی هیچکس عاجزتر از خویش
Source text: api.ganjoor.netIn English · Francis Gladwin, 1806The boaster sees nothing but himself, having a veil of conceit before his eyes.
If he was endowed with an eye capable of discerning God, he would not discover any person weaker than himself.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Gulistan, ch. II, tale 7, closing verse.
Saadi's verse at the end of the tale of the boy who stayed awake at prayer, through Conway ('Self-righteousness'). The first sentence follows 'The boaster sees nothing but himself', without 'having a veil of conceit before his eyes'. The second is Tolstoy's: «Лучше бы ему быть слепым, чем видеть только себя» (better for him to be blind than to see only himself) stands in place of 'If he was endowed with an eye capable of discerning God, he would not discover any person weaker than himself'.
To “do not kill, nor cause slaughter” Tolstoy adds “do not torment” and “do not cause suffering”; in the second verse every living thing “wants the same as you,” and the command not to kill gives way to “understand yourself, then, in every living being.”
Original · translated by F. Max Müller
129. All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remember that you are like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
130. All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remember that thou art like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
TolstoyТолстой
Всё живое боится мучения, всё живое боится смерти; пойми самого себя во всяком живом существе, не мучай и не убивай, не причиняй страданий и смерти.
Всё живое хочет того же, чего и ты, всё живое дорожит своей жизнью; пойми же самого себя во всяком живом существе.
Every living thing fears torment, every living thing fears death; understand yourself in every living being, do not torment and do not kill, do not cause suffering and death.
Every living thing wants the same as you, every living thing holds its life dear; understand yourself, then, in every living being.
From Dhammapada · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · PaliSabbe tasanti daṇḍassa, …
… sabbe bhāyanti maccuno; …
Attānaṁ upamaṁ katvā, …
… sabbesaṁ jīvitaṁ piyaṁ; …
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · F. Max Müller, 1881129. All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remember that you are like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
130. All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remember that thou art like unto them, and do not kill, nor cause slaughter.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньВсё живое трепещет мучения, всё живое боится смерти; познай самого себя во всяком живом существе — и не убивай и не причиняй смерти.
Всё живое отвращается от страдания, всё живое дорожит своей жизнию; пойми же самого себя во всяком живом существе — не убивай и не причиняй смерти.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Dhammapada, vv. 129–130 (Daṇḍavagga).
Dhammapada 129–130, reworked from Tolstoy's own 1903 text. Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 17 February, prints both verses signed Dhammapada; that collection's Dhammapada came from N. Gerasimov's Russian, «Путь к истине» (1898), named in the Jubilee commentary (vol. 40) and not found online. Against Müller: 'All men tremble at punishment' becomes «Всё живое боится мучения» (all living things; the Pali has 'all'); 'remember that you are like unto them' becomes «пойми самого себя во всяком живом существе»; in v. 130 'all men love life' becomes «Всё живое хочет того же, чего и ты, всё живое дорожит своей жизнью», and its 'do not kill, nor cause slaughter' is cut. Against the 1903 text Tolstoy adds «не мучай» and «не причиняй страданий» to the first verse and replaces «отвращается от страдания» with «хочет того же, чего и ты».
Gogol’s road, “слишкомъ положена въ основу нашей жизни,” laid too deep in the foundation of our life, becomes a way whose knowledge “is set too clearly in our heart,” and “а Богъ есть истина,” and God is truth, becomes “and he calls us to himself”; Tolstoy adds the pity for those who go past it “by the road of death,” and a closing sentence on them.
Original · Russian
ВсЬ сойдемся мы на одной дорог!..
Дорога эта слишкомъ поло/кеиа въ осниву нашей жиши. слшпкомъ пшрока и замЬтна для того, чтобы не попасть на нее.
Въ концЬ дороги этой Богъ; а Богъ есть истина;
TolstoyТолстой
Путь жизни — один, и все мы рано или поздно сойдемся на этом пути. Знание этого пути слишком ясно заложено в наше сердце, слишком широка и заметна эта дорога для того, чтобы не попасть на нее. В конце дороги этой — бог, и он зовет нас к себе, и как больно смотреть на людей, когда они идут мимо этой дороги, дорогою смерти.
Путь жизни широк, но многие не знают его и идут дорогою смерти.
The way of life is one, and all of us, sooner or later, will meet on this way. The knowledge of this way is set too clearly in our heart, this road is too broad and too plain, for us to miss it. At the end of this road is God, and he calls us to himself; and how painful it is to watch people when they go past this road, by the road of death.
The way of life is broad, but many do not know it and go by the road of death.
From Letter to A. S. Danilevsky, 20 June 1843 · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · RussianВсЬ сойдемся мы на одной дорог!..
Дорога эта слишкомъ поло/кеиа въ осниву нашей жиши. слшпкомъ пшрока и замЬтна для того, чтобы не попасть на нее.
Въ концЬ дороги этой Богъ; а Богъ есть истина; …
Source text: archive.orgRelated · Matthew 7:13–14… потому что тесны́ врата и узок путь, ведущие в жизнь, и немногие находят их.
Source text: ru.wikisource.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Letter to A. S. Danilevsky, 20 June 1843, Письма Н. В. Гоголя, ed. V. I. Shenrok, vol. II (St Petersburg: A. F. Marks, 1901), letter XXVII; its old-orthography OCR quoted with its errors.
Found while May was being made (work/may/trace/german-russian.json found the letter, the source of May 10’s Gogol too). Gogol’s three sentences, reworked: «Всѣ сойдемся мы на одной дорогѣ» (we shall all meet on one road) becomes «Путь жизни — один, и все мы рано или поздно сойдемся на этом пути»; the road «слишкомъ положена въ основу нашей жизни» (laid too deep in the foundation of our life) becomes «знание этого пути слишком ясно заложено в наше сердце»; «слишкомъ широка и замѣтна для того, чтобы не попасть на нее» is kept; «Въ концѣ дороги этой Богъ; а Богъ есть истина» becomes «В конце дороги этой — бог, и он зовет нас к себе». The pity for those who go by the road of death, and the last paragraph, are Tolstoy’s, as «По Гоголю» allows. March proposed the digression on the errors of mankind in Dead Souls, vol. I, ch. 10, as the probable source; the letter has the words.
Bacon’s account of a “culture of the mind” becomes a precept, as Coit’s anthology already has it; “more perfect” and “more depraved” become “the greatest perfection” and “the greatest depravity,” and Tolstoy adds a promise: “then you will live more and more often in good hours.”
Original
But there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved. The purpose, therefore, of this practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil.
TolstoyТолстой
Души людей бывают временами в состоянии наибольшего совершенства, временами же в состоянии наибольшей развращенности. Дорожи хорошими часами, удерживай их и прогоняй от себя дурные, и тогда всё чаще и чаще будешь жить хорошими часами и реже и реже дурными.
The souls of men are at times in a state of the greatest perfection, and at times in a state of the greatest depravity. Treasure the good hours, hold on to them, and drive the bad ones away from you, and then you will live more and more often in good hours, and less and less often in bad ones.
From The Advancement of Learning · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Stanton Coit, The Message of Man: A Book of Ethical ScripturesThe minds of all men are at some times …
… in other times in a state more depraved, …
Fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, obliterate and take forth the evil.
Source text: archive.orgAfter Bacon’s own wordsBut there is a kind of culture of the mind that seemeth yet more accurate and elaborate than the rest, and is built upon this ground; that the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved. The purpose, therefore, of this practice is to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The Advancement of Learning (1605), Book II, Book II, ch. XXII, § 14, on the culture of the mind.
Changed into a precept with a promise. Bacon describes a 'culture of the mind' built on the ground that 'the minds of all men are at some times in a state more perfect, and at other times in a state more depraved', whose purpose is 'to fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, and to obliterate and take forth the evil'. Coit's The Message of Man, in Tolstoy's list of sources, already drops the frame and gives the second half as a command: 'Fix and cherish the good hours of the mind, obliterate and take forth the evil' (its first clause reads 'in a state more nearly perfect'; the scan's OCR garbles 'in a state', which a marginal heading, 'Fix the best in thee', interrupts). Tolstoy follows Coit: 'more perfect' and 'more depraved' become 'the greatest perfection' and 'the greatest depravity' (наибольшего совершенства, наибольшей развращенности), 'fix and cherish' becomes 'treasure them, hold them', 'obliterate and take forth' becomes 'drive away from yourself', and he adds a close of his own: 'and then you will live more and more often in good hours, and less and less often in bad.' «По Бэкону» marks the retelling. No printable.
Adds “wages war” to what the man “commanded to love even his enemies” does, and a closing sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “We say that we profess it, but we only frighten people away from it”; “his very kindred” become “people.”
Original · translated by Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. 14 (ed. Philip Schaff)
But had they separated one from the other, all things would have been lost.
For nothing so raises respect in the heathen as virtue, nothing so offends them as vice.
When one of them sees the greedy man, the plunderer, exhorting others to do the contrary, when he sees the man who was commanded to love even his enemies, treating his very kindred like brutes, he will say that the words are folly.
We, we are the cause of their remaining in their error.
TolstoyТолстой
Апостолы жили так, что у всех было одно сердце и одна душа. А если бы они были несогласны между собою, то никто не знал бы о Христовой вере. Ведь и теперь язычники не принимают христианства потому, что не видят в христианах единения и любви. Ничто не привлекает так людей, как добродетель, и ничто так не отталкивает, как порок. От этого и отвращаются люди от христианства, потому что, когда человек видит, что тот, кому заповедано любить и врагов, лихоимствует, грабит, воюет, возбуждает ко вражде и обращается с людьми как с дикими зверями, он не может верить учению о любви. Когда же видит, что христианин боится смерти, то уже никак не поверит в бессмертие. Мы, христиане, виноваты в том, что они не верят в Христово учение. Может быть, мы скажем: «берите пример с старинных святых людей». Но люди хотят видеть добродетельных теперешних людей. Покажи нам, говорят, веру от дел твоих, а дел нет. Напротив, они видят, что мы хуже зверей терзаем ближнего своего. Вот что удерживает людей от христианского учения. Мы говорим, что исповедуем его, а только отпугиваем от него людей.
The apostles lived so that all were of one heart and one soul. And had they been at odds among themselves, no one would have known of the faith of Christ. Even now the heathen do not accept Christianity because they do not see unity and love among Christians. Nothing draws people as virtue does, and nothing repels them as vice does. That is why people turn away from Christianity, because when a man sees that one who has been commanded to love even his enemies practices extortion, robs, wages war, stirs up enmity, and treats people like wild beasts, he cannot believe the teaching of love. And when he sees that a Christian fears death, he will by no means believe in immortality. We Christians are to blame that they do not believe in Christ’s teaching. Perhaps we shall say: “Take your example from the holy men of old.” But people want to see virtuous people of today. Show us, they say, your faith by your works; but there are no works. On the contrary, they see that we torment our neighbor worse than beasts do. That is what keeps people from the Christian teaching. We say that we profess it, but we only frighten people away from it.
From Homilies on the Gospel of John · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Беседы на Евангелие от Иоанна, Russian translation in «Творения святого отца нашего Иоан…Она тотчас сделала апостолов людьми добрыми и прекрасными, так что у всех было одно сердце и одна душа. А если бы они были несогласны между собою, то погибло бы все.
Ведь, когда язычник увидит, что тот, кому заповедано любить и врагов, лихоимствует, грабит, побуждает к вражде и обращается с одноплеменниками, как с дикими зверями, – он назовет наши слова пустыми бреднями.
Покажи нам, говорят, веру от дел твоих; а дел нет. Напротив, они видят, что мы хуже зверей терзаем ближнего своего, и потому называют нас язвою вселенной.
Вот что удерживает язычников и не дозволяет им присоединиться к нам.
Source text: azbyka.ruIn English · Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ser. 1, vol. 14 (ed. Philip Schaff), 1889But had they separated one from the other, all things would have been lost.
For nothing so raises respect in the heathen as virtue, nothing so offends them as vice.
When one of them sees the greedy man, the plunderer, exhorting others to do the contrary, when he sees the man who was commanded to love even his enemies, treating his very kindred like brutes, he will say that the words are folly.
We, we are the cause of their remaining in their error.
Source text: ccel.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily LXXII (on John 13:20–35), § 5 (§ 4 in the Russian).
A free shortening of the Russian translation of Homily LXXII, with additions. Kept nearly word for word: «у всех было одно сердце и одна душа. А если бы они были несогласны между собою», and «Покажи нам, говорят, веру от дел твоих, а дел нет. Напротив, они видят, что мы хуже зверей терзаем ближнего своего». Changed: "there is nothing else that causes the heathen to stumble, except that there is no love" («не другое что соблазняет язычников, а именно то, что нет любви») becomes «язычники не принимают христианства потому, что не видят в христианах единения и любви»; to the list of what the man commanded to love his enemies does («лихоимствует, грабит, побуждает к вражде») Tolstoy adds «воюет» (makes war), and "his very kindred" («с одноплеменниками») becomes «с людьми» (people); "how will he receive the accounts of immortality?" becomes «то уже никак не поверит в бессмертие»; "We, we are the cause of their remaining in their error" becomes «Мы, христиане, виноваты в том, что они не верят в Христово учение». The last sentence, «Мы говорим, что исповедуем его, а только отпугиваем от него людей», is Tolstoy's. «Ничто не привлекает так людей, как добродетель, и ничто так не отталкивает, как порок» has both halves of the Greek, as the English shows ("nothing so raises respect in the heathen as virtue, nothing so offends them as vice"); the Russian translation has only the second («ничто столько не соблазняет, как порок»). The Jubilee list of sources names «Наставления св. Иоанна Златоуста» (Посредник, 1888), not seen. The Greek (PG 59) was not saved.
Translation note. “Of one heart and one soul”: Acts 4:32. “Show us your faith by your works” recalls James 2:18 (KJV: “shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works”).
Adds a conclusion drawn from Pascal’s “haughty sages”: “Only people who are proud and of middling reason do not know God”; those “who have sufficient understanding to see the truth” become “people who are truly rational.”
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
and you will also give Him thanks for not having revealed Himself to haughty sages, unworthy to know so holy a God.
Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.
TolstoyТолстой
Два рода людей знают бога: люди со смиренным сердцем, всё равно — умные ли они, или глупые, и люди истинно разумные. Только люди гордые и среднего разума не знают бога.
Two kinds of people know God: people of humble heart, whether they are intelligent or stupid, and people who are truly rational. Only people who are proud and of middling reason do not know God.
From Pensées · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · French… et vous lui rendrez grâces encore de ce qu’il ne s’est pas découvert aux sages superbes, indignes de connaître un Dieu si saint.
Deux sortes de personnes connaissent : ceux qui ont le cœur humilié, et qui aiment la bassesse, quelque degré d’esprit qu’ils aient, haut ou bas ; ou ceux qui ont assez d’esprit pour voir la vérité, quelque opposition qu’ils y aient.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910… and you will also give Him thanks for not having revealed Himself to haughty sages, unworthy to know so holy a God.
Two kinds of persons know Him: those who have a humble heart, and who love lowliness, whatever kind of intellect they may have, high or low; and those who have sufficient understanding to see the truth, whatever opposition they may have to it.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, Brunschvicg 288 (Section IV); Trotter 288.
The first sentence follows the end of Pascal's fragment: Pascal's 'connaissent' has no object, and Tolstoy supplies God, as the context does; he leaves out 'et qui aiment la bassesse' and 'quelque opposition qu'ils y aient', and renders 'quelque degré d'esprit qu'ils aient, haut ou bas' as «всё равно — умные ли они, или глупые». The second sentence, «Только люди гордые и среднего разума не знают бога», is Tolstoy's conclusion; it draws on the 'sages superbes' earlier in the same fragment. Signed «По Паскалю».
Adds a first paragraph of Tolstoy’s own, to tell people how to live “calmly and with kindness”; the “illiterate man” becomes anyone who does not believe “the truth we acknowledge,” and Socrates’ way, “never to be irritated in argument,” becomes a rule for the reader. †
Original · translated by George Long
Only give to any of us, whom you please, an illiterate man to discuss with, and he can not discover how to deal with the man.
But when he has moved the man a little, if he answers beside the purpose, he does not know how to treat him, but he then either abuses or ridicules him, and says, He is an illiterate man; it is not possible to do any thing with him.
Now this was the first and chief peculiarity of Socrates, never to be irritated in argument, never to utter any thing abusive, any thing insulting, but to bear with abusive persons and to put an end to the quarrel.
TolstoyТолстой
Если ты знаешь, как надо жить людям для их блага, и желаешь добра людям, то будешь высказывать им это и высказывать так, чтобы они поверили тебе. Для того же, чтобы они поверили тебе и поняли тебя, тебе надо постараться передавать твои мысли спокойно и с добротой.
А между тем, как часто мы поступаем как раз наоборот. Мы хорошо умеем беседовать с человеком, согласным или почти согласным с нами; когда же мы видим, что собеседник наш не верит в ту истину, которую мы признаем, или даже не понимает ее и, несмотря на наши усилия объяснить ему, он продолжает не соглашаться с нами и, как нам кажется, упрямится или извращает наши слова, то как легко мы теряем наше спокойствие и раздражаемся! Мы или начинаем сердиться и говорить нашему собеседнику неприятности, или прекращаем разговор, думая, что с таким непонятливым или упрямым человеком не стоит и рассуждать.
Когда ты хочешь показать твоему собеседнику в разговоре какую-нибудь истину, то самое главное при этом — не раздражаться и не сказать ни одного недоброго или обидного слова.
If you know how people ought to live for their own good, and you wish people well, you will tell them so, and tell them in such a way that they will believe you. And for them to believe you and understand you, you must try to convey your thoughts calmly and with kindness.
And yet how often we do just the opposite. We know well how to converse with a man who agrees, or almost agrees, with us; but when we see that the person we are talking with does not believe in the truth we acknowledge, or does not even understand it, and, despite our efforts to explain it to him, goes on disagreeing with us and, as it seems to us, is being stubborn or twisting our words, how easily we lose our calm and grow irritated! Either we begin to get angry and say unpleasant things to the person we are talking with, or we break off the conversation, thinking that it is not even worth reasoning with so dull or stubborn a man.
When you want to show the person you are talking with some truth, the most important thing is not to grow irritated and not to say a single unkind or hurtful word.
From Discourses · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient Greek… δὸς γοῦν ᾧ θέλεις ἡμῶν ἰδιώτην τινὰ τὸν προσδιαλεγόμενον· καὶ οὐχ εὑρίσκει χρήσασθαι αὐτῷ, …
… οὐκέτι δύναται μεταχειρίσασθαι, ἀλλʼ ἢ λοιδορεῖ λοιπὸν ἢ καταγελᾷ …
… καὶ σὺ δεῖξον αὐτῷ τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ ὄψει ὅτι ἀκολουθεῖ.
… τὸ πρῶτον δὲ τοῦτο καὶ μάλιστα ἴδιον Σωκράτους μηδέποτε παροξυνθῆναι ἐν λόγῳ, μηδέποτε λοίδορον προενέγκασθαι μηδέν, μηδέποθʼ ὑβριστικόν, ἀλλὰ τῶν λοιδορούντων ἀνέχεσθαι καὶ παύειν μάχην.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · George Long, 1877Only give to any of us, whom you please, an illiterate man to discuss with, and he can not discover how to deal with the man.
But when he has moved the man a little, if he answers beside the purpose, he does not know how to treat him, but he then either abuses or ridicules him, and says, He is an illiterate man; it is not possible to do any thing with him.
Now this was the first and chief peculiarity of Socrates, never to be irritated in argument, never to utter any thing abusive, any thing insulting, but to bear with abusive persons and to put an end to the quarrel.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньЕсли ты истинно веришь в справедливость твоего понимания жизни и желаешь добра людям, то, при случае, ты будешь высказывать другим свои мнения так, чтобы по возможности уверить твоих собеседников в справедливости твоего понимания жизни.
А между тем как часто мы поступаем как раз наоборот.
Когда ты хочешь показать твоему собеседнику в разговоре какую-нибудь истину, то самое главное при этом — не раздражаться и не сказать ни одного недоброго или обидного слова.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Discourses, II.12.1–4 and 14.
Reworked from Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), July 12: Tolstoy rewrote the first paragraph, shortened the second a little, and kept the third. The passage retells Discourses II.12 freely. Epictetus: give any of us an illiterate man to talk with, and when the man "answers beside the purpose" we "either abuse or ridicule him, and say, He is an illiterate man; it is not possible to do any thing with him", where a guide would lead a lost man back to the road; show him the truth and he will follow. Socrates' first mark was "never to be irritated in argument, never to utter any thing abusive, any thing insulting". Tolstoy's second paragraph makes the illiterate man anyone who does not believe or understand «ту истину, которую мы признаем» (the truth we profess), and his third turns Socrates' practice into a rule for the reader: «самое главное при этом — не раздражаться и не сказать ни одного недоброго или обидного слова». The first paragraph (whoever knows how people should live for their good, and wishes them good, will tell them so calmly and kindly, that they may believe) is Tolstoy's own. The guide, Socrates' method of questioning, and his example on envy are dropped. The 1903 Epictetus came from Chertkov's «Римский мудрец Эпиктет» (Посредник, 1889), not seen.
Adds a sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “To repent means to cleanse one’s soul and to prepare for a good life”; “Happy is he who repents” becomes “It is good to repent of one’s sins.”
Original · translated by S. H. Glick, En Jacob (Ein Yaakov), 1916 (via Sefaria)
Happy is he who repents when he is still young (a man).
TolstoyТолстой
Хорошо каяться в грехах, когда еще в силах.
Каяться — значит очищать свою душу и готовиться к доброй жизни, и потому хорошо каяться, пока еще силы жизни не оставили человека. Надо подливать масла, пока еще не погасла светильня.
It is good to repent of one’s sins while one still has the strength.
To repent means to cleanse one’s soul and to prepare for a good life; and so it is good to repent before the powers of life have left a man. Oil must be poured in before the wick goes out.
From Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah · reworded by Tolstoy .
In English · S. H. Glick, En Jacob (Ein Yaakov), 1916 (via Sefaria), 1916Happy is he who repents when he is still young (a man).
Source text: sefaria.orgYalkut Shimoni on Nachעשה תשובה עד שאתה בכחך, עד שהנר דולק תן לו שמן עד שלא יכבה הנר, כבה הנר אין השמן מועיל כלום
Source text: sefaria.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньБлаго человеку, кающемуся в грехах, когда он еще мужествен.
Покайся, пока силы не оставили тебя; подлей масла, пока еще не погасла светильня.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah; Yalkut Shimoni on Ecclesiastes, Avodah Zarah 19a; Yalkut Shimoni on Nach 979.
Joined from two places, with a sentence added. (1) Rav, on Psalm 112:1: 'happy is he who repents while he is a man (ish)', that is, in his strength (Avodah Zarah 19a). (2) The midrash on Ecclesiastes 9:10 in Yalkut Shimoni: 'repent while you are in your strength; while the lamp burns, give it oil before the lamp goes out; once the lamp is out, the oil is of no use'. Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 28 January, has the two in two sentences. For the Circle Tolstoy turned 'happy (ashrei) is he who repents' into «Хорошо каяться в грехах» ('it is good to repent of sins'), added a sentence of his own, «Каяться — значит очищать свою душу и готовиться к доброй жизни» ('to repent is to cleanse one's soul and prepare for a good life'), and dropped the midrash's last clause, that oil is of no use once the lamp is out. The lamp is Midrash, not Talmud. No public-domain English of the Yalkut was found.
Adds a sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “The only good is what is won by effort,” and habit that is never “vollkommen zu billigen,” wholly to be approved, becomes habit that “can never be accounted a good.”
Original · German
Angewohnheit ist niemals, selbst nicht in guten Hand- lungen, vollkommen zu billigen . . . Das Gute hört dadurch auf Tugend zu sein.
TolstoyТолстой
Привычку никогда нельзя признать добром, даже и привычку к хорошим поступкам. Хорошее, благодаря ей, перестает быть добродетелью. Добро только то, что добывается усилием.
Habit can never be accounted a good, not even the habit of good actions. Through habit, good action ceases to be virtue. The only good is what is won by effort.
Kant.
From Reflexionen zur Anthropologie · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · GermanAngewohnheit ist niemals, selbst nicht in guten Handlungen, vollkommen zu billigen . . . Das Gute hört dadurch auf Tugend zu sein.
Source text: archive.orgBenno ErdmannAngewohnheit ist niemals, selbst nicht in guten Handlungen, vollkommen zu billigen. Man wird durch beides mechanisch.
Alle Angewohnheit ist eine Krankheit in Diät, weil man nicht gleich leicht zu zwei entgegengesetzten Zuständen disponirt ist. Selbst das Gute hört dadurch auf Tugend zu sein.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Reflexionen zur Anthropologie (Kant's manuscript notes, ed. Benno Erdmann, 1882), as excerpted in Raoul Richter, Kant-Aussprüche (1901), Kant-Aussprüche no. 150 (Richter's register: Reflexionen I, 75); Erdmann, Reflexionen Kants zur kritischen Philosophie I.1 (Leipzig, 1882), no. 47.
Two of Kant's notes on habit, as Richter joins them, and a sentence of Tolstoy's. Kant: habit (Angewohnheit) “is never, not even in good actions, wholly to be approved”, «никогда нельзя признать добром, даже и привычку к хорошим поступкам» in Tolstoy; “the good thereby ceases to be virtue” (Das Gute hört dadurch auf Tugend zu sein), «Хорошее, благодаря ей, перестает быть добродетелью». Tolstoy's last sentence, «Добро только то, что добывается усилием» (only that is good which is won by effort), has no counterpart in Richter or in Erdmann's fuller text, where Kant's reasons are mechanical: “one becomes mechanical through both”, and “all habit is a disease in diet, because one is not equally disposed to two opposite states” (the edition block). Richter's dots mark that cut. Tolstoy did not reprint the thought in «На каждый день» or «Путь жизни». No public-domain English was found.
Adds “truly” to “He, who loves God,” and a sentence with no counterpart in the proposition: “It is enough for him that he himself loves God.”
Original · translated by R. H. M. Elwes
He, who loves God, cannot endeavour that God should love him in return.
TolstoyТолстой
Кто истинно любит бога, тот не будет стремиться к тому, чтобы бог любил его. Ему достаточно самому любить бога.
Whoever truly loves God will not strive to have God love him. It is enough for him that he himself loves God.
From Ethica · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · LatinQui Deum amat, conari non potest, ut Deus ipsum contra amet.
Source text: la.wikisource.orgIn English · R. H. M. Elwes, 1883He, who loves God, cannot endeavour that God should love him in return.
Source text: gutenberg.orgRelated · Goethe, Aus meinem Leben. Dichtung und Wahrheit, Part III, Book 14Jenes wunderliche Wort: »Wer Gott recht liebt, muß nicht verlangen, daß Gott ihn wieder liebe«, mit allen den Vordersätzen, worauf es ruht, mit allen den Folgen, die daraus entspringen, erfüllte mein ganzes Nachdenken.
Source text: zeno.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Ethica (1677), Part V, Proposition 19, Ethics V, prop. 19 (Latin Wikisource, from Appuhn's edition of 1913); Elwes, Part V, Prop. XIX.
Spinoza's proposition, with a word and a sentence added. Spinoza: “He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return” (Qui Deum amat, conari non potest, ut Deus ipsum contra amet); Tolstoy: «Кто истинно любит бога, тот не будет стремиться к тому, чтобы бог любил его» (he who truly loves God will not strive that God love him), and then «Ему достаточно самому любить бога» (it is enough for him himself to love God), which has no counterpart in the proposition or its demonstration (which argues that such a striving would be a wish that God be not God, and so a wish for pain). The added «истинно» (truly) matches the «recht» (rightly) of Goethe's paraphrase in Dichtung und Wahrheit (related block), “Wer Gott recht liebt, muß nicht verlangen, daß Gott ihn wieder liebe” (he who loves God rightly must not ask that God love him in return); whether Tolstoy knew the line through Goethe is not known.
Adds a closing clause of Tolstoy’s own, “and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way onward”; “No man is so great as mankind” becomes “One man cannot be as great as humanity.”
Original
From the time of Moses to Jesus there was a large intellectual and religious development of mankind, a marked progress in the religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual men, and of the leading nations of mankind.
From the time of Jesus to our time this progi'ess, both in individuals and in nations, has been yet more rapid. Old errors have been cast away, new truths have been added to the consciousness of mankind.
No man is so great as mankind. If the great genius at first is so far before his brothers as to be incomprehensible, by and by they overtake him, pass by him, and go still farther
on till they become incomprehensible to the man who stands where the genius once stood.
TolstoyТолстой
От Моисея до Иисуса совершилось великое умственное и религиозное развитие среди отдельных людей и народов. От времени Иисуса до нашего это движение, как в отдельных людях, так и в народах, было еще значительнее. Старые заблуждения откинуты, и новые истины вошли в сознание человечества. Один человек не может быть так же велик, как человечество. Если великий человек настолько впереди своих собратий, что они не понимают его, — приходит время, когда они сначала догоняют, потом обгоняют его и уходят так далеко, что, в свою очередь, становятся непонятными для тех, которые стоят на том месте, где стоял прежний великий человек, и тогда нужен новый великий человек, и он является и открывает дальнейший путь.
From Moses to Jesus a great intellectual and religious development took place among individuals and nations. From the time of Jesus to our own, this movement, in individuals and nations alike, has been still greater. Old errors have been cast off, and new truths have entered the consciousness of humanity. One man cannot be as great as humanity. If a great man is so far ahead of his fellows that they do not understand him, a time comes when they first catch up with him, then overtake him, and go so far ahead that they in their turn become incomprehensible to those who stand where the former great man stood; and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way onward.
From The Popular Theology, a sermon in Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Theodore Parker: Passages from his Writings, selected by Albert Walkley, in Unity Church…From the time of Jesus to our own time this progress, both in individuals and in nations, has been more rapid.
Every great genius for religion will add new facts to the world’s experience of religion, just as much since the death of Jesus as before his time.
Source text: archive.orgParker’s own wordsFrom the time of Moses to Jesus there was a large intellectual and religious development of mankind, a marked progress in the religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual men, and of the leading nations of mankind.
From the time of Jesus to our time this progi'ess, both in individuals and in nations, has been yet more rapid. Old errors have been cast away, new truths have been added to the consciousness of mankind.
No man is so great as mankind. If the great genius at first is so far before his brothers as to be incomprehensible, by and by they overtake him, pass by him, and go still farther …
… on till they become incomprehensible to the man who stands where the genius once stood.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · На каждый деньВсякий великий религиозный гений все больше и больше уясняет религиозные истины и содействует этим все большему и большему единению людей.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. The Popular Theology, a sermon in Sermons of Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology (Boston, 1853), Pp. 92–93, after 'I make a distinction between his theology and his religion'.
Close until its last clause, which is Tolstoy's. Parker's five sentences are kept in order, as Walkley's selection gives them: the sentence on the theology of the most eminent Catholics and Protestants, and the one on how wicked it is thought to say this, are left out in both. 'a marked progress in the religious sentiments, ideas, and actions of individual men, and of the leading nations' becomes 'among individual men and peoples'; 'more rapid' becomes 'more significant' (значительнее); 'No man is so great as mankind' becomes 'One man cannot be as great as mankind'; the genius becomes 'a great man'. To the man who stands where the genius once stood Tolstoy adds 'and then a new great man is needed, and he appears and opens the way further' (и тогда нужен новый великий человек, и он является и открывает дальнейший путь), where Parker's selection goes on, 'Every great genius for religion will add new facts to the world's experience of religion'. «На каждый день» (19 February) ends with a version of Parker's sentence instead: 'Every great religious genius makes religious truths ever clearer and so furthers the ever greater union of people', the union being Tolstoy's. The sermon has 'yet more rapid' and 'to our time', the selection 'more rapid' and 'to our own time'; Tolstoy's 'yet more significant' (еще значительнее) and 'to ours' do not decide between them. The Jubilee list of Tolstoy's sources names 'Freedom, Fellowship and Character in Religion, Unity Mission № 18, Chicago'. That is the masthead of Unity's Church-Door Pulpit, whose Series II gave four numbers to 'Gospel passages' of Channing, Parker, Emerson, and Martineau; the Parker number (No. 10, 1885) prints the passages of 4-17.1 and 4-17.2 one after the other, with the same cuts and the same ending as Tolstoy's, so it was probably what he read. Its No. 18 (16 February 1886) is a discourse, S. H. Sonneschein's 'Darwin and Emerson', so the Jubilee's '№ 18' does not match it; the series' Channing and Emerson numbers were not found (Nos. 12 and 13 are missing on archive.org). No printable.
Adds a closing sentence not found in the essay, “The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him”; “For every thing that is given something is taken” becomes “Every acquisition of so-called progress is bound up with some deprivation.” †
Original
For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little;
TolstoyТолстой
Каждое приобретение так называемого прогресса сопряжено с некоторым лишением: общество обогатится, например, новым изобретением, а между тем утратит некоторое свойство, врожденное каждому из нас. Образованный человек имеет экипажи, но едва владеет своими ногами. У него прекрасные женевские часы, но ему не узнать часа по солнцу. Он купит астрономический календарь и, полагаясь на то, что найдет в нем всё нужное, не сумеет отличить ни одной звезды на небе, не подметит ни осеннего, ни весеннего равноденствия.
Разумный человек, откидывая всё излишнее, в конце концов возвращается к тому, что для него необходимо.
Every acquisition of so-called progress is bound up with some deprivation: society will be enriched, for example, by a new invention, and meanwhile will lose some faculty inborn in each of us. The educated man has carriages, but barely has the use of his own legs. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he cannot tell the hour by the sun. He will buy an astronomical almanac and, relying on finding everything he needs in it, will not be able to pick out a single star in the sky, will notice neither the autumnal nor the vernal equinox.
The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him.
From Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series · reworded by Tolstoy .
Emerson’s own wordsFor every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts.
The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.
He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; …
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Self-Reliance, in Essays, First Series (1841), Part 4 of the essay, on the spirit of society, after 'Society never advances'.
Emerson's sentences in order, shortened and changed, with a closing sentence not found. 'For every thing that is given something is taken' becomes 'Every acquisition of so-called progress (так называемого прогресса) is joined with some loss'; 'Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts' becomes 'society is enriched, for example, by a new invention, and loses some property innate in each of us'. The American and the New Zealander are left out. 'has lost the use of his feet' becomes 'hardly commands his legs', and 'He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle' is left out. The Geneva watch is kept; the Greenwich nautical almanac becomes 'an astronomical calendar', 'does not know a star in the sky' 'will not be able to tell one star in the sky', and 'The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little' 'will not notice either the autumn or the spring equinox'. The second paragraph, 'The reasonable man, casting off everything superfluous, in the end returns to what is necessary for him', is not in the essay; the nearest found is 'the wish, namely, to cast aside the superfluous and arrive at short methods' in Emerson's 'New England Reformers' (Essays, Second Series). No printable. The Jubilee list names two Russian Emerson selections, Nakashidze's «Высшая душа» (Posrednik, 1902) and «О доверии к себе» (Posrednik, 1904), and two English ones, Garnett's Passages (1902) and Broadbent's An Emerson's Treasury (1903); none was found online, so whether a change is Tolstoy's or a translator's cannot be told.
“In ancient times” and “now-a-days” drop out, so learners of two ages become two motives for learning, and Tolstoy adds the verdicts: learning for oneself “is useful to them,” learning for others “not only useless but harmful.”
Original · translated by James Legge
The Master said, 'In ancient times, men learned with a view to their own improvement. Now-a-days, men learn with a view to the approbation of others.'
TolstoyТолстой
Когда люди занимаются учением для самих себя, учение это полезно для них; когда же люди делают это для других, чтобы казаться учеными, ученость эта не только бесполезна, но вредна.
When people take up study for themselves, that study is useful to them; but when people do it for others, so as to seem learned, that learning is not only useless but harmful.
From Analects · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · G. Pauthier, Confucius et Mencius: Les quatre livres de philosophie morale et politique …Le Philosophe dit: Dans l'antiquité, ceux qui se livraient à l'étude le faisaient pour eux-mêmes; maintenant, ceux qui se livrent à l'étude le font pour les autres [pour paraître instruits aux yeux des autres]
Source text: gutenberg.orgIn English · James Legge, 1861The Master said, 'In ancient times, men learned with a view to their own improvement. Now-a-days, men learn with a view to the approbation of others.'
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньКогда люди занимаются учением для самих себя, учение это полезно для них, когда же люди делают это для других, чтобы казаться учеными, ученость эта бесполезна.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Analects (Lunyu), XIV.25 (Legge XIV.xxv; Pauthier XIV.25).
Pauthier's French, through Tolstoy's 1903 version (Thoughts of Wise Men, 18 August, where he names the Lun-yu), with a judgment added. Pauthier: 'in antiquity those who gave themselves to study did it for themselves; now those who give themselves to study do it for others [to appear learned in others' eyes]'. Tolstoy drops 'in antiquity' and 'now', so the contrast of ancient and modern students becomes one of two motives, and keeps Pauthier's bracketed gloss as «чтобы казаться учеными». The verdicts are his own: in 1903 «учение это полезно для них … ученость эта бесполезна» (useful to them … useless), in the Circle «не только бесполезна, но вредна» (not only useless but harmful). The Chinese 古之學者爲己，今之學者爲人 says only that the ancients learned for themselves and men now learn for others (Legge: 'with a view to their own improvement … with a view to the approbation of others'). The saying is Confucius's (子曰).
Rabbi Zeira’s warning against promising a child something and not giving it becomes a command, “Keep what you have promised him,” and the saying gains an opening, “Be truthful always, and especially with a child.” †
Original · he
לא לימא איניש לינוקא דיהיבנא לך מידי ולא יהיב ליה משום דאתי לאגמוריה שיקרא
TolstoyТолстой
Будь правдив всегда и особенно с ребенком. Исполняй обещанное ему, иначе приучишь его ко лжи.
Be truthful always, and especially with a child. Keep what you have promised him, or you will accustom him to lying.
From Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Hebrewלא לימא איניש לינוקא דיהיבנא לך מידי ולא יהיב ליה משום דאתי לאגמוריה שיקרא
Source text: sefaria.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньБудь правдив даже по отношению дитяти: исполняй обещанное ему, иначе приучишь его ко лжи.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah, 46b (Rabbi Zeira).
Rabbi Zeira, in Sukkah 46b: "a man should not say to a child, I will give you something, and then not give it to him, because he thereby teaches him to lie" (the Gemara adds Jeremiah 9:4, 9:5 in the KJV, "they have taught their tongue to speak lies"). The prohibition becomes a command, «исполняй обещанное ему, иначе приучишь его ко лжи» (keep what you promised him, or you will teach him to lie), kept from Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), January 24. The opening is Tolstoy's: in 1903 «Будь правдив даже по отношению дитяти» (be truthful even toward a child), in the Circle «Будь правдив всегда и особенно с ребенком» (be truthful always, and especially with a child). Printed in italics in the Jubilee text. No public-domain English of the passage was found (Glick's En Jacob omits it). Tolstoy's Talmud sayings in that book came from his two Russian anthologies, Gurvich's «Живая мораль» (1901) and «Мировоззрение талмудистов» (1874–76) (Jubilee vol. 40 commentary), neither of them online.
Adds “do not torment animals” and “give the dumb creatures food and drink in plenty,” and riding them “when they are fit to be rode” becomes making use of them “while they serve willingly.”
Original · translated by A. N. Matthews, Mishcat-ul-Masabih (Calcutta, 1809-10)
the Prophet passed by a camel, the belly of which was drawn up to its back:
fear God, in these dumb quadrupeds, and ride them when they are fit to be rode, and get off them when they are tired.
TolstoyТолстой
Бойтесь бога, не мучьте животных. Пользуйтесь ими, пока они служат охотно, и отпускайте их, когда они устали, и давайте вволю пищи и питья бессловесным.
Fear God, do not torment animals. Make use of them while they serve willingly, and let them go when they are tired, and give the dumb creatures food and drink in plenty.
From Hadith: Sunan Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Jihad, no. 2548 · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Arabicببعير قد لحق ظهره ببطنه
اتقوا الله في هذه البهائم المعجمة فاركبوها صالحة وكلوها صالحة
Source text: ar.wikisource.orgIn English · A. N. Matthews, Mishcat-ul-Masabih (Calcutta, 1809-10), 1810… the Prophet passed by a camel, the belly of which was drawn up to its back: …
… fear God, in these dumb quadrupeds, and ride them when they are fit to be rode, and get off them when they are tired.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Hadith: Sunan Abi Dawud, Kitab al-Jihad, no. 2548; in Mishkat al-Masabih, Book of Marriage, Abu Dawud 2548 (chapter on caring for riding animals and beasts); Matthews, Mishcat-ul-Masabih vol. II, Book XIII, ch. XVII (on maintenance and on slaves).
The hadith is in Matthews' English of the Mishkat, which April's and December's Muhammad sayings came through: 'fear God, in these dumb quadrupeds, and ride them when they are fit to be rode, and get off them when they are tired.' Tolstoy keeps 'fear God' and the two halves of the rule, as «пользуйтесь ими, пока они служат охотно» (use them while they serve willingly) and «отпускайте их, когда они устали» (let them go when they are tired), and adds two things not in Matthews or in the Arabic: «не мучьте животных» (do not torment animals) and «давайте вволю пищи и питья бессловесным» (give the dumb creatures plenty to eat and drink). Where the additions came from was not found; the Arabic of Abu Dawud ends «وكلوها صالحة» (eat them, or feed them, while they are in good condition), a reading other than Matthews' 'get off them when they are tired'; the Arabic of the Mishkat itself was not checked. The Prophet spoke on seeing a camel whose belly had shrunk to its back from hunger. Not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) or Conway.
Adds a first sentence not in the letter, “Man can live in two ways: by the true (inner) life, or by a false, illusory (outer) life”; living “своими впечатлѣніями,” by his own impressions, becomes living “by impressions alone,” and the talent “данный Имъ же ему,” given him by Him, becomes “the talent given him.”
Original · Russian
Внутреннею жизнью я понимаю ту жизнь, когда человккъ уже не живетъ своими впечатлЬн1ямн, когда не идетъ отвЬдывать уже извЬстной ему жизни, по когда сквозь все видитъ одну П1)истань и берегъ — Бога п во имя Его стремится и спЬнтитъ употре- бить в'ь д1'.до данный Имъ же ему талантъ, а но зарыть его въ землю, сльипа, что не для своихъ удовольств1Й дана ему жизнь, что строже ея долгъ и что взыщется страишо съ него,
А вн'Ьшняя жизнь само собою есть проти- воположность внутренней ^), когда челов'Ькъ подъ вл1ян1емъ страстныхъ увлечен1й влечется безъ борьбы потоками жизни, когда н'Ьтъ внутри его центра, на который оперигись, могъ бы онъ пересилить и самыя страдан1я, п горе жизни.
БнГлиняя жизнь вн-Ь Бога, внутренняя жизнь — въ БогЬ.
TolstoyТолстой
Человек может жить двояко: истинной (внутренней) жизнью, или жизнью ложной, призрачной (внешней). Под внутренней жизнью я понимаю ту жизнь, когда человек уже не живет одними впечатлениями, но когда сквозь всё видит одну пристань и берег — бога, и во имя его стремится и спешит употребить в дело данный ему талант, а не зарыть его в землю, — зная, что не для своих удовольствий дана ему жизнь.
Man can live in two ways: by the true (inner) life, or by a false, illusory (outer) life. By the inner life I mean the life in which a man no longer lives by impressions alone, but sees through everything the one haven and shore — God — and in his name strives and hastens to put to use the talent given him, and not to bury it in the ground, knowing that life was not given him for his own pleasures.
From Letter to A. S. Danilevsky, 20 June 1843 · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · RussianВнутреннею жизнью я понимаю ту жизнь, когда человккъ уже не живетъ своими впечатлЬн1ямн, когда не идетъ отвЬдывать уже извЬстной ему жизни, по когда сквозь все видитъ одну П1)истань и берегъ — Бога п во имя Его стремится и спЬнтитъ употребить в'ь д1'.до данный Имъ же ему талантъ, а но зарыть его въ землю, сльипа, что не для своихъ удовольств1Й дана ему жизнь, что строже ея долгъ и что взыщется страишо съ него, …
А вн'Ьшняя жизнь само собою есть противоположность внутренней ^), когда челов'Ькъ подъ вл1ян1емъ страстныхъ увлечен1й влечется безъ борьбы потоками жизни, когда н'Ьтъ внутри его центра, на который оперигись, могъ бы онъ пересилить и самыя страдан1я, п горе жизни.
БнГлиняя жизнь вн-Ь Бога, внутренняя жизнь — въ БогЬ.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Letter to A. S. Danilevsky, 20 June 1843, Письма Н. В. Гоголя, ed. V. I. Shenrok, vol. II (St Petersburg: A. F. Marks, 1901), letter XXVII, pp. 316–317 (first printed in «Древняя и новая Россия», 1875); its old-orthography OCR quoted with its errors.
Gogol's definition of the inner life, from his reply to Danilevsky, who had taken offence at being told he still lived an outward life. Tolstoy's second sentence follows Gogol's first closely, cut short, and his first sentence is not Gogol's. Added: «Человек может жить двояко: истинной (внутренней) жизнью, или жизнью ложной, призрачной (внешней)» (a man can live in two ways: the true, inner life, or the false, illusory, outward one); Gogol sets the two lives against each other only after the definition (“the outer life is the opposite of the inner”; “the outer life is outside God, the inner life is in God”), and the words «ложной, призрачной» (false, illusory) are not his. Changed: “своими впечатлениями” (by his own impressions) becomes «одними впечатлениями» (by impressions alone); “данный Им же ему талант” (the talent given him by Him) becomes «данный ему талант» (the talent given him); “слыша” (sensing) becomes «зная» (knowing). Left out: “когда не идет отведывать уже известной ему жизни” (when he no longer goes to taste a life already known to him), and everything after “не для своих удовольствий дана ему жизнь” (life was not given him for his pleasures): that its duty is sterner, and that it will be required of him terribly if he has not looked into himself to learn where his place is, “for there is no needless link in the world”. The framing sentence may come from one of the two Gogol anthologies in the Jubilee list of the Circle's sources, A. I. Orlov's «Н. В. Гоголь как учитель жизни» (Посредник, 1888) and G. A. Rusanov's «Душа Гоголя» (Посредник, 1902); neither was found online. The letter was first printed in 1875, after Kulish's edition of the letters (1857), and is not on Russian Wikisource; Shenrok's 1901 printing is the earliest public-domain one found, and its OCR is poor («П1)истань» for «пристань», «спЬнтитъ» for «спешит»). The same letter, two pages further on, has the road on which “we shall all meet”, “too wide and plain not to be found”, with God at its end, which March's 3-10.5 («По Гоголю») retells.
Adds a closing sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “For such a man there is no movement, no life,” and “He who has no ideal” becomes he who has “no idea of perfection.”
Original · translated by Mrs. Humphry Ward
He who has no ideal contents himself with what is; he has no quarrel with facts, which for him are identical with the just, the good, and the beautiful.
TolstoyТолстой
Тот, кто не имеет представления о совершенстве, довольствуется тем, что есть, не спорит с действительностью, которая становится для него тождественной с справедливостью, с благом, с красотою. Для такого человека нет движения, нет жизни.
He who has no idea of perfection is content with what is and does not quarrel with reality, which becomes for him identical with justice, with the good, with beauty. For such a man there is no movement, no life.
From Fragments d'un journal intime · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchL'idéal est donc l'espérance indestructible du mieux, la protestation involontaire contre le présent, le ferment de l'avenir.
Celui qui n'a point d'idéal se contente de ce qui est; il ne querelle point le fait, qui devient pour lui identique avec le juste, avec le bien, avec le beau.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1885He who has no ideal contents himself with what is; he has no quarrel with facts, which for him are identical with the just, the good, and the beautiful.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments d'un journal intime, Journal, 13 janvier 1879 (7th ed., Geneva 1897, t. II, p. 259); Ward's translation, January 13, 1879.
One sentence of the entry, closely kept, with a sentence added; Tolstoy signs it «По Амиелю». Amiel's 'Celui qui n'a point d'idéal' (he who has no ideal) becomes «Тот, кто не имеет представления о совершенстве» ('he who has no notion of perfection'); the rest follows the French. The last sentence, «Для такого человека нет движения, нет жизни» ('for such a man there is no movement, no life'), is Tolstoy's own; Amiel goes on to ask why the divine radiation is imperfect.
Pascal’s closing sentence, “It is an image of the condition of men,” gives way to a paragraph of Tolstoy’s own that turns the image into a reproach: “the most wicked robbers” in such a position would not harm one another, “and yet all people are in this position — and what do they do?”
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.
TolstoyТолстой
Представьте себе толпу людей в цепях. Все они приговорены к смерти, и каждый день одни из них умерщвляются на глазах у других. Остающиеся, видя этих умирающих и ожидающих своей очереди, видят свою собственную участь.
Как надо жить людям, когда они в таком положении? Неужели заниматься тем, чтобы бить, мучить, убивать друг друга? Самые злые разбойники в таком положении не будут делать зла друг другу. А между тем все люди находятся в этом положении — и что же они делают?
Imagine a crowd of people in chains. All of them are condemned to death, and every day some of them are put to death before the eyes of the others. Those who remain, seeing them dying and awaiting their turn, see their own fate.
How should people live when they are in such a position? Is it really to busy themselves with beating, tormenting, killing one another? The most wicked robbers in such a position will not do one another harm. And yet all people are in this position — and what do they do?
From Pensées · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchQu’on s’imagine un nombre d’hommes dans les chaînes, et tous condamnés à la mort, dont les uns étant chaque jour égorgés à la vue des autres, ceux qui restent voient leur propre condition dans celle de leurs semblables, et, se regardant les uns et les autres avec douleur et sans espérance, attendent à leur tour. C’est l’image de la condition des hommes.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910Let us imagine a number of men in chains, and all condemned to death, where some are killed each day in the sight of the others, and those who remain see their own fate in that of their fellows, and wait their turn, looking at each other sorrowfully and without hope. It is an image of the condition of men.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньПредставьте себе толпу людей в цепях. Все они приговорены к смерти, и каждый день одни из них умерщвляются на глазах у других. Остающиеся, видя этих умирающих и ожидающих своей очереди, видят свою собственную участь. Такова человеческая жизнь.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, Brunschvicg 199 (Section III); Trotter 199.
B. 199 with a new ending; Tolstoy signs it «По Паскалю». The first paragraph is his 1903 translation word for word, without its last sentence, «Такова человеческая жизнь» (Pascal's 'C'est l'image de la condition des hommes'); it leaves out 'se regardant les uns et les autres avec douleur et sans espérance'. The second paragraph is Tolstoy's own: how should men live in such a state? beat, torment, and kill one another? the worst robbers would not; yet all men are in this state, «и что же они делают?» ('and what do they do?'). Pascal's image of the human condition becomes a reproach of violence. The 1903 source, Orlov's Pascal (Посредник, 1889), was not found online.
Adds “for his only faithful companion is himself,” and “him who wants a companion,” who lacks one, becomes “him who seeks a companion.”
Original
Woe to him who wants a companion, for he is unfit to be the companion even of himself.
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
TolstoyТолстой
Горе тому, кто ищет товарища, потому что верный товарищ — только он сам, ищущий же не может быть верным товарищем сам себе.
Woe to him who seeks a companion, for his only faithful companion is himself, and he who seeks cannot be a faithful companion to himself.
From Journal, June 1850, as printed in Summer, ed. H. G. O. Blake · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Every Day with Thoreau, in The Coming DayWoe to him who wants a companion, for he is unfit to be the companion even of himself.
Source text: archive.orgThoreau’s own wordsWoe to him who wants a companion, for he is unfit to be the companion even of himself.
We inspire friendship in men when we have contracted friendship with the gods.
Source text: archive.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Journal, June 1850, as printed in Summer, ed. H. G. O. Blake (Boston, 1884), Summer (1884), p. 75, among the entries for June 9–14, 1850.
Changed and lengthened. Thoreau's 'him who wants a companion' (who lacks one) becomes 'him who seeks a companion' (кто ищет товарища). Tolstoy adds a clause of his own, 'for the faithful companion is only himself' (потому что верный товарищ — только он сам), and 'he is unfit to be the companion even of himself' becomes 'the one who seeks cannot be a faithful companion to himself', adding 'faithful' (верным). The Coming Day's calendar prints Thoreau's sentence unchanged under May 16; it is probably Tolstoy's route, as for May's other Thoreau (5-3.7, 5-27.3). No printable.
Adds “and you are not grieved, but rejoice” to the saying that it is highest of all to be condemned for a good deed.
Original · translated by George Long
From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
TolstoyТолстой
Выше всего то, когда тебя осуждают за доброе дело, и ты не огорчаешься, а радуешься.
Highest of all is this: when you are condemned for a good deed, and you are not grieved, but rejoice.
From Meditations · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient GreekΒασιλικὸν εὖ μὲν πράττειν, κακῶς δὲ ἀκούειν.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · George Long, 1862From Antisthenes: It is royal to do good and to be abused.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньВыше всего то, когда тебя осуждают за доброе дело.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Meditations, VII.36.
Marcus copies a saying: "It is royal to do good and to be ill spoken of." Diogenes Laertius (VI.3) gives it to Antisthenes, answering a report that Plato spoke ill of him; Long's heading "From Antisthenes" follows that. Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), June 6, has «Выше всего то, когда тебя осуждают за доброе дело» (highest of all is when you are condemned for a good deed): "royal" becomes «выше всего». For the Circle Tolstoy adds «и ты не огорчаешься, а радуешься» (and you are not grieved, but rejoice), and signs it «По Марку Аврелию» (after Marcus Aurelius). The 1903 Marcus came from the Посредник edition of L. D. Urusov's Russian, «Размышления римского императора Марка Аврелия о том, что важно для самого себя» (Jubilee vol. 40 commentary); Urusov's wording was not compared, as the saved 1882 scan has no text layer.
Adds a first sentence found in neither the Dhammapada nor Conway, “one must first of all recognize that the root of every sin lies in evil thoughts,” and “All that we are is the result of what we have thought” becomes “We are all only the consequences of what we think.”
Original · translated by F. Max Müller
1. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.
TolstoyТолстой
Чтобы избегать грехов и побеждать их, прежде всего надо признать то, что корень каждого греха — в дурных мыслях.
Мы все — только последствия того, что мы думаем.
To avoid sins and overcome them, one must first of all recognize that the root of every sin lies in evil thoughts.
We are all only the consequences of what we think.
From Dhammapada · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · PaliManopubbaṅgamā dhammā, …
… manoseṭṭhā manomayā; …
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · F. Max Müller, 18811. All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньНаша жизнь — следствие наших мыслей: она рождается в нашем сердце, она исходит из наших мыслей.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Dhammapada, v. 1 (Yamakavagga), its opening.
The second sentence is the opening of the Dhammapada in Max Müller's English: 'All that we are is the result of what we have thought' becomes «Мы все — только последствия того, что мы думаем» (we are all only the consequences of what we think). The Pali says 'mind goes before all states; mind is their chief; they are made of mind.' The first sentence, «Чтобы избегать грехов и побеждать их, прежде всего надо признать то, что корень каждого греха — в дурных мыслях» (to avoid sins and overcome them, one must first recognize that the root of every sin lies in bad thoughts), was found neither in the Dhammapada nor in Conway, and reads as Tolstoy's own lead-in. Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 20 January, gives the whole verse in other words («Наша жизнь — следствие наших мыслей»).
Translation note. The Russian italic is broken only at the commas and dashes; each paragraph is set here as one span.
Pascal’s close, “Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality,” becomes a promise: our understanding, valued and sustained, “will light up our whole life for us and show us what is good and what is evil”; “a vapour, a drop of water” becomes “a mere trifle.” †
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.
TolstoyТолстой
В сравнении с окружающим его миром человек — не более, как слабый тростник; но он — тростник, одаренный разумением.
Какого-нибудь пустяка достаточно, чтобы убить человека. И все-таки человек выше всяких тварей, выше всего земного, потому что он и умирая будет разумом своим сознавать, что он умирает. Человек может сознать ничтожество своего тела перед природою. Природа же ничего не сознает.
Всё наше преимущество заключается в нашей способности разуметь. Одно только разумение возвышает нас над остальным миром. Будем же ценить и поддерживать наше разумение, и оно осветит нам всю нашу жизнь, укажет нам, в чем добро, в чем зло.
Compared with the world around him, man is no more than a frail reed; but he is a reed endowed with understanding.
A mere trifle is enough to kill a man. And yet man is higher than all creatures, higher than everything earthly, because even in dying he will be conscious with his reason that he is dying. Man can be conscious of the insignificance of his body before nature. But nature is conscious of nothing.
Our whole advantage lies in our capacity to understand. Understanding alone elevates us above the rest of the world. Let us, then, value and sustain our understanding, and it will light up our whole life for us and show us what is good and what is evil.
From Pensées · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchL’homme n’est qu’un roseau, le plus faible de la nature ; mais c’est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l’univers entier s’arme pour l’écraser : une vapeur, une goutte d’eau, suffît pour le tuer.
Mais, quand l’univers l’écraserait, l’homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu’il sait qu’il meurt, et l’avantage que l’univers a sur lui ; l’univers n’en sait rien.
Toute notre dignité consiste donc en la pensée. C’est de là qu’il faut nous relever et non de l’espace et de la durée, que nous ne saurions remplir. Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A vapour, a drop of water suffices to kill him.
All our dignity consists, then, in thought. By it we must elevate ourselves, and not by space and time which we cannot fill. Let us endeavour, then, to think well; this is the principle of morality.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньВ сравнении с окружающим его миром человек не более, как слабый тростник; но он — тростник, одаренный разумением.
Будем же ценить и поддерживать наше разумение, и оно осветит нам всю нашу жизнь, укажет нам, в чем добро, в чем зло.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, Brunschvicg 347 (Section VI); Trotter 347.
B. 347 throughout, freely rendered and ending in a sentence of its own. The Circle repeats Tolstoy's Thoughts of Wise Men (1903) word for word; his Pascal there came from A. I. Orlov's «Французский ученый Влас Паскаль» (Посредник, 1889; Jubilee vol. 40), not found online. 'Une vapeur, une goutte d'eau' (a vapour, a drop of water) becomes «Какого-нибудь пустяка» (some trifle); man 'plus noble que ce qui le tue' (nobler than what kills him) is «выше всяких тварей, выше всего земного» (above all creatures, above everything earthly), and the universe that 'n'en sait rien' (knows nothing of it) becomes «Природа». Pascal's 'C'est de là qu'il faut nous relever et non de l'espace et de la durée' (from there we must raise ourselves, not from space and time) becomes «Одно только разумение возвышает нас над остальным миром». His close, 'Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale' (let us labour then to think well: that is the principle of morality), becomes «Будем же ценить и поддерживать наше разумение, и оно осветит нам всю нашу жизнь, укажет нам, в чем добро, в чем зло» (let us value and sustain our understanding, and it will light our whole life and show us what is good and what is evil).
Translation note. «Разумение» is “understanding” throughout this thought, and «разум» is “reason,” as elsewhere in the Circle.
Lao-Tzu’s warnings against keeping a vessel full and a point sharp become two rules of care, as already in Tolstoy’s 1903 version, “hold it carefully upright” and “keep sharpening it,” and the Circle adds the lesson: “So it is with your soul, if you seek the true good.”
Original · translated by James Legge
It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full.
If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness.
TolstoyТолстой
Чтобы не пролить полный сосуд, нужно внимательно держать его прямо.
Чтобы лезвие было остро, нужно постоянно точить его.
То же и с твоей душой, если ты ищешь истинного блага.
So as not to spill a full vessel, you must hold it carefully upright.
For a blade to be sharp, you must keep sharpening it.
So it is with your soul, if you seek the true good.
From Daodejing · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Paul Carus, Lao-Tze's Tao-Teh-KingHolding and keeping full, had that not better be left alone? Handling and keeping sharp, can that wear long?
Source text: archive.orgIn English · James Legge, 1891It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full.
If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness.
Source text: gutenberg.orgAnother translation · Lao-Tseu, Tao te king, traduit par Stanislas Julien… un vase que de vouloir le maintenir (lorsqu'il est plein).
… une lame , bien qu'on l'explore avec la main, on ne pourra la conserver constamment (tranchante).
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньЧтобы не пролить полный сосуд, нужно внимательно держать его прямо. Чтобы лезвие было остро, нужно постоянно точить его.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Daodejing, ch. 9, its first two lines.
Two lines of chapter 9, turned into their opposite through Tolstoy's 1903 version (Thoughts of Wise Men, 4 August), with a sentence added. Lao-Tzu warns against fullness and sharpness: Carus, 'Holding and keeping full, had that not better be left alone? Handling and keeping sharp, can that wear long?'; Legge, 'It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full. If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness.' The 1903 version makes them two rules of care: «Чтобы не пролить полный сосуд, нужно внимательно держать его прямо. Чтобы лезвие было остро, нужно постоянно точить его» (so as not to spill a full vessel one must hold it carefully upright; for a blade to be sharp one must keep sharpening it). The Circle keeps these and adds «То же и с твоей душой, если ты ищешь истинного блага» (so it is with your soul, if you seek the true good). Neither Carus nor Julien's French, which Tolstoy used with Popov in 1893 (Jubilee vol. 40 commentary), reads the lines as rules of care; which reading lay behind the 1903 version was not found.
Translation note. The Russian italic is broken only at the comma; it is set here as one span.
Adds a first sentence found in none of the Pythagorean sayings searched, “Be convinced that you have no property other than your soul,” and Stobaeus’s three strong anchors, “Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude,” become one: “Only in virtue.”
Original · translated by Thomas Taylor
Pythagoras said, it is requisite to choose the most excellent life; for custom will make it pleasant.
Wealth is an infirm anchor, glory is still more infirm; and in a similar manner the body, dominion, and honor. For all these are imbecile and powerless. What then are powerful anchors? Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake.
This is the law of God, that virtue is the only thing that is strong; and that every thing else is a trifle.
TolstoyТолстой
Убедись, что нет у тебя иной собственности, кроме твоей души. Избери решительно самый лучший образ жизни, привычка сделает его приятным для тебя. Богатство — якорь ненадежный, а слава — и того хуже. То же и тело, то же и власть, то же и почет: всё это ничтожно и бессильно. В чем же надежный якорь для жизни? Только в добродетели. Таков уж божественный закон, что только добродетель держится твердо и непоколебимо; всё же остальное — ничто.
Be convinced that you have no property other than your soul. Choose resolutely the very best way of life; habit will make it pleasant to you. Wealth is an unreliable anchor, and fame still worse. So too the body, so too power, so too honor: all this is worthless and powerless. Where, then, is a reliable anchor for life? Only in virtue. Such is the divine law: virtue alone holds firm and unshaken; all the rest is nothing.
From Pythagoric Ethical Sentences from Stobaeus · reworded by Tolstoy .
In English · Thomas Taylor, 1818Pythagoras said, it is requisite to choose the most excellent life; for custom will make it pleasant.
Wealth is an infirm anchor, glory is still more infirm; and in a similar manner the body, dominion, and honor. For all these are imbecile and powerless. What then are powerful anchors? Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake.
This is the law of God, that virtue is the only thing that is strong; and that every thing else is a trifle.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pythagoric Ethical Sentences from Stobaeus, the sixth sentence ("Pythagoras said ..."), in Taylor's collection appended to Iamblichus' Life of Pythagoras.
Sentences 2 to 4 of Tolstoy's text are the Pythagorean saying preserved by Stobaeus, here in Taylor's English: "Pythagoras said, it is requisite to choose the most excellent life; for custom will make it pleasant. Wealth is an infirm anchor, glory is still more infirm; and in a similar manner the body, dominion, and honor. For all these are imbecile and powerless. What then are powerful anchors? Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake. This is the law of God, that virtue is the only thing that is strong; and that every thing else is a trifle." Tolstoy follows it closely to "powerless" («всё это ничтожно и бессильно»), adding «решительно» (resolutely) and «для тебя» (for you). He then changes the answer: Stobaeus's three strong anchors, "Prudence, magnanimity, fortitude. These no tempest can shake", become «Только в добродетели» (only in virtue), and "every thing else is a trifle" becomes «всё же остальное — ничто» (all the rest is nothing). The first sentence, «Убедись, что нет у тебя иной собственности, кроме твоей души» (be convinced that you have no property but your soul), is not in this saying or in the other Pythagorean sentences Taylor collects from Stobaeus, Demophilus, Sextus, and Iamblichus's Protrepticus (searched in Firth's reprint, sacred-texts.com, The Golden Verses of Pythagoras, 1904). What Tolstoy read was not found: the saying is not in Moralistes anciens, Boiste, Ramage, or Taylor's Demophilus (1804), and the signature «Пифагор Самосский» suggests a French or English collection that named him so. The Greek, in Stobaeus's Anthology, was not saved.
Amiel’s close, “Fire purifies all,” gains a second half found neither in the French nor in Ward: fire purifies everything “in the material world; love, in the spiritual world.”
Original · translated by Mrs. Humphry Ward
Besides, the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the balm of a silent and thoughtful charity.
There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The simplest plan is to blot everything out.
Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged. Fire purifies all.
TolstoyТолстой
Ничем нельзя вынуть из раны отравленного жала, как только бальзамом молчаливого и предупредительного милосердия. Зачем позволять себе раздражаться на человеческую злобу, на неблагодарность, на зависть, даже на коварство? Перекорам, жалобам, наказаниям никогда не будет конца. Самое простое — стереть всё. Обиды, упреки, вспышки возмущают душу. Надо иметь средство исцеления от этих зол. Огонь очищает всё в вещественном мире; любовь — в мире духовном.
Nothing can draw the poisoned sting out of a wound except the balm of silent and considerate mercy. Why let yourself be irritated by human malice, by ingratitude, by envy, even by treachery? There will never be an end to bickering, complaints, and punishments. The simplest thing is to wipe it all away. Offenses, reproaches, and outbursts trouble the soul. One must have a means of healing these ills. Fire purifies everything in the material world; love, in the spiritual world.
From Fragments d'un journal intime · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchOn ne fait sortir de sa blessure le dard empoisonné que par le dictame de la charité silencieuse et prévenante.
On n'en finit pas avec les récriminations, les plaintes ou les châtiments. Le plus simple est de tout effacer.
L'homme est justicier ; mais il y a un mal qu'il n'est pas tenu de punir : c'est celui dont il est victime.
Il faut avoir un procédé de guérison pour ces maux-là. Le feu purifie tout.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1885Besides, the poisoned dart can only be extracted from the wound by the balm of a silent and thoughtful charity.
There is no end to recriminations, complaints, or reprisals. The simplest plan is to blot everything out.
Such a wrong is to be healed, not avenged. Fire purifies all.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments d'un journal intime, Journal, 22 novembre 1880 (5th ed., Geneva 1887, t. II, p. 306); Ward's translation, November 22, 1880.
The second half of the entry for 22 November 1880 (its first half is 7-8.1), translated closely up to its last words, with one sentence left out and a clause added. Left out: 'L'homme est justicier ; mais il y a un mal qu'il n'est pas tenu de punir : c'est celui dont il est victime' (man is a dispenser of justice, but there is one wrong he is not bound to punish: the one of which he is the victim). Added: Amiel ends 'Le feu purifie tout' (fire purifies all), followed by two lines of verse; the Russian ends «Огонь очищает всё в вещественном мире; любовь — в мире духовном» (fire purifies all in the material world; love, in the spiritual). The words «любовь — в мире духовном» are not in the French or in Ward, and they tie the thought to the day's theme, love. 'Dictame' (dittany, a healing herb) becomes «бальзамом» (balm), as in Ward. Ward's 'to be healed, not avenged' is his own; the French has 'Il faut avoir un procédé de guérison pour ces maux-là' (one must have a way of healing these ills), which the Russian follows («Надо иметь средство исцеления от этих зол»). Mrs. M. L. Tolstaya's Russian selection, «Из дневника Амиеля» (Посредник, 1894; the Jubilee list of the Circle's sources names the 1901 printing), was not found online.
To guarding oneself, “not losing sight of himself for a single moment,” the Circle adds “especially in his dealings with people.”
Original · translated by F. Max Müller
315. Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell.
TolstoyТолстой
Как дозоры бдительно сторожат крепость, сторожат и вокруг стены и внутри ее, так и человек должен бодро охранять себя, ни на одно мгновение не упуская себя из вида, в особенности в отношениях с людьми; кто упустит из вида решительную минуту в жизни, тот неминуемо вступит на путь в преисподнюю.
As sentries vigilantly guard a fortress, guarding it both around the wall and within, so a man must guard himself wakefully, not losing sight of himself for a single moment, especially in his dealings with people; whoever loses sight of the decisive moment in life will inevitably set out on the road to the underworld.
From Dhammapada · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · PaliNagaraṁ yathā paccantaṁ, …
Evaṁ gopetha attānaṁ, …
… khaṇo vo mā upaccagā; …
… nirayamhi samappitā.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · F. Max Müller, 1881315. Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньКак дозоры бдительно сторожат крепость, сторожат и вокруг стены и внутри ее, так и человек должен бодро охранять себя, ни одно мгновение не упуская из вида; кто упустит из вида решительную минуту в жизни, тот неминуемо вступит на путь в преисподнюю.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Dhammapada, v. 315 (Nirayavagga).
Tolstoy's 1903 version (Thoughts of Wise Men, 23 June; Gerasimov's Russian Dhammapada of 1898, not found online, behind it), with a clause added for the Circle: «ни на одно мгновение не упуская себя из вида, в особенности в отношениях с людьми» (never for a moment losing sight of himself, especially in dealings with people). The verse: as a border city is guarded within and without, so guard yourselves; let not the moment pass you by, for those who let it pass grieve, consigned to hell (Müller: 'Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defences within and without, so let a man guard himself. Not a moment should escape, for they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell'). In the Russian the guarded city becomes sentries watching a fortress («как дозоры бдительно сторожат крепость»), 'the moment' becomes «решительную минуту в жизни» (the decisive moment in life), and grieving in hell becomes «неминуемо вступит на путь в преисподнюю» (will surely set out on the road to the underworld). Only the clause about dealings with people is new in the Circle.
Adds a closing sentence not in Kant, “man’s consciousness of the divine principle in himself impels him to fulfill the law of goodness more strongly than any outward rewards”; “er könne dieses, weil er es soll,” he can do this because he ought, becomes the general “I can because I ought,” and the motive of duty, “viel zu fein,” much too fine, becomes “too weak and remote.”
Original · German
Der Begriff der Pflicht in seiner ganzen Reinigkeit ist nicht allein ohne allen Vergleich einfacher, klarer, für Jedermann zum praktischen Gebrauch fasslicher und natürlicher, als jedes von der Glückseligkeit hergenom- mene, oder damit und mit der Rücksicht auf sie ver- mengte Motiv, (welches jederzeit viel Kunst und Ueberle- gung erfordert;) sondern auch in dem Urtheile selbst der gemeinsten Menschenvernunft, wenn er nur an die- selbe, und zwar mit Absonderung, ja sogar in Ent- gegensetzung mit diesem an den Willen der Menschen gebracht wird, bei weitem kräftiger, eindringender und Erfolg versprechender, als alle von dem letzteren eigennützigen Prinzip entlehnte Bewegungsgründe.
Dass der Mensch sich bewusst ist, er könne dieses, weil er es soll: das eröffnet in ihm eine Tiefe göttlicher Anlagen, die ihn gleichsam einen heiligen Schauer über die Grösse und Erhabenheit seiner wahren Bestimmung fühlen lässt.
Und wenn der Mensch öfters darauf aufmerksam gemacht und gewöhnt würde, die Tugend von allem Reichthum ihrer aus der Beobachtung der Pflicht zu machenden Beute von Vortheilen gänzlich zu entladen, und sie in ihrer ganzen Reinigkeit sich vorzustellen; wenn es im Privat- und öffentlichen Unterricht Grundsatz würde, davon bestän- dig Gebrauch zu machen, (ein Methode, Pflichten einzu- schärfen, die fast jederzeit versäumt worden ist;) so müsste es mit der Sittlichkeit der Menschen bald besser stehen.
Dass die Geschichtserfahrung bisher noch nicht den guten Erfolg der Tugendlehren hat beweisen wollen, daran ist wohl eben die falsche Voraussetzung Schuld: dass die von der Idee der Pflicht an sich selbst abge- leitete Triebfeder für den gemeinen Begriff viel zu fein sei, wogegen die gröbere, von gewissen in dieser, ja- wohl auch in einer künftigen Welt aus der Befolgung des Gesetzes (ohne auf dasselbe als Triebfeder Acht zu haben,) zu erwartenden Vortheilen hergenommene kräf- tiger auf das Gemüth wirken würde;
TolstoyТолстой
Понятие о долге во всей его чистоте не только несравненно проще, яснее, понятнее для каждого на деле, чем это же понятие, выведенное из стремления к счастью или связанное и считающееся с ним (и всегда требующее немало искусственности и тонких соображений), но и пред судом обыкновенного здравого смысла гораздо могущественнее, настойчивее и более обещает успеха, чем все побуждения, исходящие из своекорыстия, — если только понятие о долге усвоено здравым смыслом, совершенно независимо от своекорыстных побуждений.
Сознание, что я могу, потому что должен, открывает в человеке глубину божественных дарований, которая дает ему почувствовать величие и возвышенность его истинного назначения. И если бы человек почаще обращал на это внимание и привык бы совершенно отделять добродетель от всей массы выгод, служащих наградой ей за исполнение долга, и представлять ее себе во всей ее чистоте; если бы основой частного и общественного обучения было сделано непрестанное упражнение в добродетели (именно метод настаивать на исполнении обязанностей, чтó почти всегда оставалось в пренебрежении), то нравственное состояние людей скоро улучшилось бы. В том, что исторический опыт до сих пор не давал хороших результатов для учения о добродетели, виновато то ложное предположение, что побуждение, выведенное из идеи долга, будто бы слишком слабо и отдаленно, а что сильнее действует на душу более близкое побуждение, проистекающее из расчета на выгоды, которых надо ждать отчасти в этом, а также и в будущем мире за исполнение закона. Между тем как сознание человеком в себе божественного начала сильнее всяких внешних наград побуждает его к исполнению закона добра.
The concept of duty in all its purity is not only incomparably simpler, clearer, and more intelligible to everyone in practice than the same concept derived from the striving for happiness, or bound up with it and taking account of it (which always requires no small amount of artifice and subtle reasoning), but also, before the court of ordinary common sense, far more powerful, more insistent, and more promising of success than all motives that proceed from self-interest — if only the concept of duty has been taken in by common sense entirely independently of self-interested motives.
The consciousness that I can because I ought reveals in man a depth of divine endowments, which lets him feel the greatness and sublimity of his true calling. And if man paid heed to this more often, and grew used to separating virtue entirely from the whole mass of advantages that serve as its reward for the fulfillment of duty, and to picturing it to himself in all its purity; if unceasing exercise in virtue were made the foundation of private and public education (namely, the method of insisting on the fulfillment of obligations, which has almost always been neglected), then the moral condition of people would soon improve. That historical experience has so far given no good results for the teaching of virtue is the fault of the false supposition that the motive derived from the idea of duty is too weak and remote, and that a nearer motive acts more strongly on the soul: one arising from counting on the advantages to be expected for fulfilling the law, partly in this world and also in the world to come. Yet man’s consciousness of the divine principle in himself impels him to fulfill the law of goodness more strongly than any outward rewards.
From Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Pra… · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · GermanDer Begriff der Pflicht in seiner ganzen Reinigkeit ist nicht allein ohne allen Vergleich einfacher, klarer, für Jedermann zum praktischen Gebrauch fasslicher und natürlicher, als jedes von der Glückseligkeit hergenommene, oder damit und mit der Rücksicht auf sie vermengte Motiv, (welches jederzeit viel Kunst und Ueberlegung erfordert;) sondern auch in dem Urtheile selbst der gemeinsten Menschenvernunft, wenn er nur an dieselbe, und zwar mit Absonderung, ja sogar in Entgegensetzung mit diesem an den Willen der Menschen gebracht wird, bei weitem kräftiger, eindringender und Erfolg versprechender, als alle von dem letzteren eigennützigen Prinzip entlehnte Bewegungsgründe.
Dass der Mensch sich bewusst ist, er könne dieses, weil er es soll: das eröffnet in ihm eine Tiefe göttlicher Anlagen, die ihn gleichsam einen heiligen Schauer über die Grösse und Erhabenheit seiner wahren Bestimmung fühlen lässt.
Und wenn der Mensch öfters darauf aufmerksam gemacht und gewöhnt würde, die Tugend von allem Reichthum ihrer aus der Beobachtung der Pflicht zu machenden Beute von Vortheilen gänzlich zu entladen, und sie in ihrer ganzen Reinigkeit sich vorzustellen; wenn es im Privatund öffentlichen Unterricht Grundsatz würde, davon beständig Gebrauch zu machen, (ein Methode, Pflichten einzuschärfen, die fast jederzeit versäumt worden ist;) so müsste es mit der Sittlichkeit der Menschen bald besser stehen.
Dass die Geschichtserfahrung bisher noch nicht den guten Erfolg der Tugendlehren hat beweisen wollen, daran ist wohl eben die falsche Voraussetzung Schuld: dass die von der Idee der Pflicht an sich selbst abgeleitete Triebfeder für den gemeinen Begriff viel zu fein sei, wogegen die gröbere, von gewissen in dieser, jawohl auch in einer künftigen Welt aus der Befolgung des Gesetzes (ohne auf dasselbe als Triebfeder Acht zu haben,) zu erwartenden Vortheilen hergenommene kräftiger auf das Gemüth wirken würde; …
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Путь жизниСознание, что я могу, потому что должен, открывает в человеке глубину божественных дарований, которая дает ему почувствовать, как священному пророку, величие и возвышенность его истинного назначения.
Между тем как сознание человеком в себе духовного начала, вызывающее отречение от своей личности, гораздо сильнее всяких наград побуждает человека к исполнению закона добра.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (1793), Part I (Vom Verhältnis der Theorie zur Praxis in der Moral überhaupt), Kleinere Schriften zur Ethik und Religionsphilosophie, ed. J. H. von Kirchmann (Berlin, 1870), pp. 111 and 113 (AA VIII, 286–288).
Kant's reply to Garve, two passages two pages apart, followed by a sentence of Tolstoy's own, as «По Канту» (after Kant) signals. First paragraph, Kant's sentence shortened: the concept of duty in its whole purity is beyond comparison simpler, clearer, and more graspable for everyone in practice than any motive taken from happiness or mixed with regard for it (which always needs much art and reflection), and in the judgment of the commonest human reason far stronger, more penetrating, and more promising of success than all motives drawn from the selfish principle. Tolstoy makes the happiness motive «это же понятие, выведенное из стремления к счастью» (the same concept derived from the striving for happiness), leaves out “und natürlicher” (and more natural), and makes Kant's condition “wenn er nur an dieselbe, und zwar mit Absonderung, ja sogar in Entgegensetzung mit diesem an den Willen der Menschen gebracht wird” (if only it is brought to men's will in separation from, indeed in opposition to, that motive) «если только понятие о долге усвоено здравым смыслом, совершенно независимо от своекорыстных побуждений» (if only common sense has taken in the concept of duty entirely apart from self-interested motives). Left out between the paragraphs: Kant's example of the deposit and the child's answer, and his appeal to inner experience. Second paragraph, close with two changes: Kant's “er könne dieses, weil er es soll” (he can do this, because he ought), said of the pure moral disposition overcoming life's evils, becomes the general «я могу, потому что должен» (I can because I must), and “gleichsam einen heiligen Schauer” (as it were a holy shudder) is left out; “davon beständig Gebrauch zu machen” (to make constant use of this, the purity of virtue) becomes «непрестанное упражнение в добродетели» (unceasing exercise in virtue); “viel zu fein” (much too fine) for common understanding becomes «слишком слабо и отдаленно» (too weak and remote), and “die gröbere” (the coarser) motive «более близкое» (nearer). Added: the last sentence, «Между тем как сознание человеком в себе божественного начала сильнее всяких внешних наград побуждает его к исполнению закона добра» (whereas a man's consciousness of the divine principle in himself moves him more strongly than any outward rewards to fulfil the law of good), which is not in Kant. In «Путь жизни» (tolstoy block) the second paragraph has «как священному пророку» (as to a holy prophet) where Kant has “heiligen Schauer” (holy shudder), probably reading “Schauer” in its older sense of seer, and the added sentence speaks of the spiritual principle calling for renunciation of self. The passage is not in Richter's Kant-Aussprüche; how Tolstoy read it was not found. No public-domain English of Part I was found (Hastie's Kant's Principles of Politics, 1891, translates Parts II and III only).
The saying is expanded: the counsel not to answer those who speak evil of you drops out, a bargain with one’s conscience is added, “It is a trifle, of no importance,” and going to appease the one offended becomes “do not rest until, by your own entreaties or through the mediation of friends, you have prevailed on the one you offended to be wholly reconciled.” †
Original · he
אם אומרים עליך אחרים דבר רע אל תענם. גדול יהיה בעיניך כקטן.
אם אמרת על אחרים דבר רע קטן יהיה בעיניך כגדול עד שתלך ותפייס עליו
TolstoyТолстой
Дети мои! Если кто нанесет вам обиду словом, то не придавайте этому значения, а смотрите на это как на дело, не заслуживающее внимания. Если же у вас вырвалось оскорбительное слово о другом, то не вступайте в сделку со своею совестью, говоря: «Что же мы такое сказали, ведь это мелочь, что за важность». Нет, не рассуждайте так, а смотрите на свой поступок, как на дело великой важности, и не успокаивайтесь до тех пор, пока вам собственными мольбами или посредничеством друзей не удастся склонить обиженного к совершенному примирению.
My children! If anyone offends you with a word, attach no importance to it, but look on it as a matter not worth attention. But if an insulting word about another has escaped you, do not strike a bargain with your conscience, saying: “Why, what did we say? It is a trifle, of no importance.” No, do not reason so, but look on your act as a matter of great importance, and do not rest until, by your own entreaties or through the mediation of friends, you have prevailed on the one you offended to be wholly reconciled.
From Derekh Eretz Zuta · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Hebrewאם אומרים עליך אחרים דבר רע אל תענם. גדול יהיה בעיניך כקטן.
אם אמרת על אחרים דבר רע קטן יהיה בעיניך כגדול עד שתלך ותפייס עליו
Source text: sefaria.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньДети мои! если кто нанесет вам обиду словом, то не придавайте этому слишком большого значения, а смотрите на это, как на мелочь.
Нет, не рассуждайте так, а смотрите на то, как на дело великой важности, пока вам собственными мольбами или посредничеством друзей не удастся склонить обиженного к полному извинению и совершенному примирению.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Derekh Eretz Zuta, 1:7 (Vilna ed.); the same saying is a baraita in Kallah Rabbati 3; Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 23 December.
The saying of Derekh Eretz Zuta 1:7, a minor tractate printed with the Babylonian Talmud: 'If others speak evil of you, do not answer them; let a great thing be in your eyes as small. If you have spoken evil of others, let a small thing be in your eyes as great, until you go and appease him.' Kallah Rabbati 3 has it as a baraita. Tolstoy's version, taken from his Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 23 December, expands it: it opens «Дети мои!» (my children), leaves out 'do not answer them', adds the excuse made to one's conscience («Что же мы такое сказали, ведь это мелочь, что за важность»), and has the offended man won over «собственными мольбами или посредничеством друзей» (by your own pleas or through friends). None of these is in the Hebrew. Yoma 87a has the friends: whoever offends his fellow even with words must appease him, and if he has no money to offer, 'let him bring many friends to him'; it reads this out of Proverbs 6:1-3, which opens 'My son'. The expansion was probably made in the Russian collection Tolstoy used (Gurvich, 1901, or «Мировоззрение талмудистов», 1874–76; neither online). For the Circle Tolstoy changed his 1903 text in four places: «слишком большого значения» (too great importance) became «значения»; «как на мелочь» (as a trifle), «как на дело, не заслуживающее внимания» (as a thing not worth attention); «смотрите на то» (look on it), «смотрите на свой поступок» (look on your deed); and «пока вам … не удастся склонить обиженного к полному извинению и совершенному примирению» (to full apology and complete reconciliation), «и не успокаивайтесь до тех пор, пока вам … не удастся склонить обиженного к совершенному примирению» (and do not rest until … to complete reconciliation). No public-domain English of Derekh Eretz Zuta was found.
Adds a first paragraph of Tolstoy’s own, “Almost always, if we search within ourselves, we will find the same sin that we condemn in another,” and the religious man hurt at injuries, “as yet but shallow water,” becomes “not a river but a puddle”; “A great river” becomes “A deep river.”
Original · translated by Francis Gladwin
A great river is not made turbid by a stone ; the religious man who is hurt at injuries is as yet but shallow water.
If any misfortune befalleth you, bear with it ; that, by forgiving others, you may yourself obtain pardon.
seeing that we are at last to return to earth, let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into dust.
TolstoyТолстой
Почти всегда, поискав в себе, мы найдем тот же грех, который мы осуждаем в другом. Если же мы не знаем за собой именно того самого греха, то стоит только поискать, и мы найдем худшие.
Глубокая река не возмутится от того, что в нее бросить камень; религиозный человек, который возмутится оскорблениями — не река, а лужа. Если тебя постигло бедствие, неси его с тем, чтобы, прощая других, ты сам заслужил прощение. Будем помнить, что все мы вернемся в землю, и будем смиренны. Будем посыпать главу пеплом, прежде чем превратимся в прах.
Almost always, if we search within ourselves, we will find the same sin that we condemn in another. And if we do not know ourselves to have that very same sin, we need only search, and we will find worse ones.
A deep river is not troubled when a stone is thrown into it; a religious man who is troubled by insults is not a river but a puddle. If calamity has befallen you, bear it so that, forgiving others, you yourself may earn forgiveness. Let us remember that we shall all return to the earth, and let us be humble. Let us strew ashes on our heads before we are turned to dust.
From Gulistan, ch. II · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · The Sacred AnthologyA great river is not made turbid by a stone ; …
If any misfortune befalleth you, bear with it, that, by forgiving others, you may yourself obtain pardon.
… seeing that we are at last to return to earth, let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into dust.
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · Persianدریایِ فراوان نشود تیره به سنگ
عارف که برنجد تُنُکآب است هنوز
که به عفو از گناه پاک شوی
خاک شو، پیش از آن که خاک شوی
Source text: api.ganjoor.netIn English · Francis Gladwin, 1806A great river is not made turbid by a stone ; the religious man who is hurt at injuries is as yet but shallow water.
If any misfortune befalleth you, bear with it ; that, by forgiving others, you may yourself obtain pardon.
… seeing that we are at last to return to earth, let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into dust.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Путь жизниПочти всегда, поискав в себе, мы найдем тот же грех, который мы осуждаем в другом. Если же мы не знаем за собой именно того самого греха, то стоит только поискать, и мы найдем еще худший.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Gulistan, ch. II (On the morals of dervishes), ch. II, story 40 (Ganjoor); Gladwin (1865), ch. II, Tale XLI, pp. 209-210; Conway (1874), no. DXLVII, Patience, p. 334.
Two parts. The first paragraph, in italics, is Tolstoy's own: it is not in the Gulistan or Conway, and he printed it unsigned, as his own thoughts are, in «На каждый день» (25 March) and The Path of Life (ch. XXIII, § IV). The second is the end of Gulistan II, Tale XLI, in Gladwin's English through Conway's 'Patience': 'A great river is not made turbid by a stone; the religious man who is hurt at injuries is as yet but shallow water. If any misfortune befalleth you, bear with it, that, by forgiving others, you may yourself obtain pardon. O my brother! seeing that we are at last to return to earth, let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into dust.' Tolstoy makes the great river «глубокая река» (a deep river), and 'is as yet but shallow water' «не река, а лужа» (is not a river but a puddle); 'let us humble ourselves in ashes before we are changed into dust' becomes two sentences, «Будем помнить, что все мы вернемся в землю, и будем смиренны. Будем посыпать главу пеплом, прежде чем превратимся в прах» (let us remember … and be humble; let us strew our heads with ashes before we turn to dust), and 'O my brother' is dropped. The Persian: 'the abundant sea is not made turbid by a stone; the gnostic who takes offence is shallow water still … bear it, that by pardon you may be cleansed of sin … O brother, since you will become dust, become dust before you become dust.' In The Path of Life (ch. XI, § VI) Tolstoy kept only the river and the return to earth, signed «По Саади». Not in Thoughts of Wise Men (1903).
Translation note. The Russian italic of the first paragraph is broken only at the commas; it is set here as one span. «Возмутиться» is said both of water that is stirred up and of a person who is outraged; “troubled” keeps both.
“Life is easy to live for a man who is without shame” becomes “It seems that life is easy for the shameless man,” and Tolstoy adds the lesson, “but it only seems so. The first is always uneasy, the second always at peace”; “a modest man” becomes “the mortal,” perhaps a misreading of «смиренного», humble, the word of Gerasimov’s Russian and of Tolstoy’s 1903 text. *
Original · translated by F. Max Müller
244. Life is easy to live for a man who is without shame, a crow hero, a mischief-maker, an insulting, bold, and wretched fellow.
245. But life is hard to live for a modest man, who always looks for what is pure, who is disinterested, quiet, spotless, and intelligent.
TolstoyТолстой
Кажется, что бесстыдному человеку, хвастуну, хитрецу, хулителю, дерзкому и бездельнику живется легко; что тяжела жизнь того смертного, который непрестанно стремится к непорочному, всегда кроток, разумен, бескорыстен; но это только кажется. Первый всегда тревожен, второй всегда спокоен.
It seems that life is easy for the shameless man, the boaster, the trickster, the reviler, the insolent, and the idler; that life is hard for the mortal who strives unceasingly for what is pure, who is always meek, reasonable, and disinterested; but it only seems so. The first is always uneasy, the second always at peace.
From Dhammapada · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Путь к истине… хвастуну, хитрецу, хулителю, дерзкому …
… тяжела жизнь того смиреннаго, который …
… стремится къ непорочному, всегда кротокъ, …
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · PaliSujīvaṁ ahirikena, …
… kākasūrena dhaṁsinā; …
Hirīmatā ca dujjīvaṁ, …
… niccaṁ sucigavesinā; …
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · F. Max Müller, 1881244. Life is easy to live for a man who is without shame, a crow hero, a mischief-maker, an insulting, bold, and wretched fellow.
245. But life is hard to live for a modest man, who always looks for what is pure, who is disinterested, quiet, spotless, and intelligent.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньЛегко живется бесстыдному человеку, хвастуну, хитрецу, хулителю, дерзкому и бездельнику; но тяжела жизнь того смиренного, который непрестанно стремится к непорочному, всегда кроток, разумен, бескорыстен.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Dhammapada, vv. 244-245 (Malavagga).
Dhammapada 244-245 in Gerasimov's Russian (1898), which Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 1 June, prints word for word. For the Circle Tolstoy reverses the verses' point. The Pali says that life really is easy for the shameless and hard for the modest (Müller: 'Life is easy to live for a man who is without shame … But life is hard to live for a modest man, who always looks for what is pure'). Tolstoy makes it only seem so: «Кажется, что … живется легко» (it seems that … lives easily) and «что тяжела жизнь того …» (that the life of … is hard), and adds «но это только кажется. Первый всегда тревожен, второй всегда спокоен» (but this only seems so. The first is always anxious, the second always calm). He also has «смертного» (mortal) where 1903 and Gerasimov have «смиренного» (humble; Pali hirīmant, 'modest'); whether by intent or a misreading of the one word for the other is not known. The list of vices is Gerasimov's rendering (kākasūra, 'crow-hero', is «хвастуну», braggart), and Gerasimov leaves out 'spotless' (suddhājīva).
As in Tolstoy’s 1903 version, the ship is set out at length, “When all tend to debauchery” becomes “When all people live otherwise than they should,” and he who stops becomes one who “comes to his senses and begins to live in God’s way”; the Circle adds a last sentence found in neither Pascal nor the 1903 text: “And the rest persecute him for it.” †
Original · translated by W. F. Trotter
When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.
as people in a ship think those move who are on the shore.
TolstoyТолстой
Если мы сидим в движущемся корабле и смотрим на какой-нибудь предмет на этом же корабле, то нам незаметно наше движение; если же мы посмотрим в сторону на предмет, который не движется вместе с нами, например на берег, то мы тотчас же заметим свое движение. То же бывает в жизни. Когда все люди живут не так, как следует, то это незаметно, но лишь только один опомнится и заживет по-божьи, тотчас же становится очевидным, как скверно поступают остальные. И остальные за это гонят его.
If we are sitting in a moving ship and look at some object on that same ship, our own motion is imperceptible to us; but if we look aside at an object that is not moving with us, at the shore, for example, we notice our motion at once. So it is in life. When all people live otherwise than they should, it is imperceptible; but as soon as one comes to his senses and begins to live in God’s way, it at once becomes evident how badly the rest are behaving. And the rest persecute him for it.
From Pensées · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchQuand tout se remue également, rien ne se remue en apparence, comme en un vaisseau.
Quand tous vont vers le débordement, nul n’y semble aller ; celui qui s’arrête fait remarquer l’emportement des autres, comme un point fixe.
… comme ceux qui sont dans un vaisseau croient que ceux qui sont au bord fuient.
Source text: fr.wikisource.orgIn English · W. F. Trotter, 1910When all is equally agitated, nothing appears to be agitated, as in a ship. When all tend to debauchery, none appears to do so. He who stops draws attention to the excess of others, like a fixed point.
… as people in a ship think those move who are on the shore.
Source text: gutenberg.orgPensées de Pascal, précédées de sa vie par Mme Périer, sa sœurQuand tout se remue également, rien ne se remue en apparence : comme en un vaisseau.
Qui s'arrête fait remarquer l'emportement des autres …
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньТо же бывает и в жизни. Когда все люди живут не так, как следует, это незаметно, но лишь только один опомнится и заживет по-божьи, тотчас же становится очевидным, как скверно поступают остальные.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Pensées, Brunschvicg 382 and 383 (Section VI); Trotter 382–383; Didot ed. (1863), part I, art. IX, nos. IV and XXVII, pp. 92 and 99.
Pascal's ship (B. 382), retold with the shore of B. 383 and a sentence added. Pascal: when everything moves alike, nothing seems to move, as in a ship; when all go toward excess ('le débordement'; Didot's edition reads 'dérèglement', disorder, which its scan prints 'déréiilement'), none seems to; whoever stops shows up the others' rush, like a fixed point. B. 383 adds the people in a ship who think those on the shore are moving. The Russian sets out the ship at length (we notice our motion only by looking at what does not move with us, «например на берег», such as the shore), turns 'Quand tous vont vers le débordement' into «Когда все люди живут не так, как следует» (when all people live not as they should), and the man who stops into one who «опомнится и заживет по-божьи» (comes to his senses and begins to live in God's way), whose life shows «как скверно поступают остальные» (how badly the rest behave). The Circle repeats Tolstoy's Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), October 18, and adds a last sentence that is in neither Pascal nor the 1903 text: «И остальные за это гонят его» (and for this the rest persecute him). Tolstoy's Pascal in 1903 came from A. I. Orlov's «Французский ученый Влас Паскаль» (Посредник, 1889; Jubilee vol. 40), not found online.
Adds “Nothing more is needed,” and the reward of inquiry, “nothing for thy trouble except the labour of inquiry,” becomes “nothing from your vain effort but disappointment and weariness”; God, worshipped “as if He existed, and were present,” “is present everywhere.”
Original · translated by Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from Greek Authors
Believe that there is a God, worship Him, but do not inquire too curiously into His essence ; for thou wilt have nothing for thy trouble except the labour of inquiry. Do not care to know whether He exists or not; worship Him as if He existed, and were present.
TolstoyТолстой
Верь в бога, служи ему, но не пытайся познать его сущность; ты ничего не получишь от твоего тщетного усилия, кроме разочарования и усталости.
Не заботься даже о том, чтобы узнать, существует он или нет, служи ему, как будто он существует и везде присутствует. Больше ничего не нужно.
Believe in God, serve him, but do not try to know his essence; you will gain nothing from your vain effort but disappointment and weariness.
Do not even trouble to find out whether he exists or not; serve him as though he exists and is present everywhere. Nothing more is needed.
From Fragments of uncertain plays · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient GreekΘεὸν νόμιζε καὶ σέβου, ζήτει δὲ μὴ, …
… ὡς ὄντα τοῦτον καὶ παρόντ᾽ ἀεὶ σέβου.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Craufurd Tait Ramage, Beautiful Thoughts from Greek Authors, 1864Believe that there is a God, worship Him, but do not inquire too curiously into His essence ; for thou wilt have nothing for thy trouble except the labour of inquiry. Do not care to know whether He exists or not; worship Him as if He existed, and were present.
Source text: archive.orgTolstoy’s own version · Для души. Изречения мыслителей разных стран и разных вековВерь в бога, служи ему, но не старайся узнать его.
Не заботься даже о том, чтобы узнать, есть он или нет его, — служи ему, как будто он есть всегда и во всем.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments of uncertain plays, Ramage's reference "Ex Incert. Comœd. 25".
Tolstoy translates Ramage's English: "Believe that there is a God, worship Him, but do not inquire too curiously into His essence; for thou wilt have nothing for thy trouble except the labour of inquiry. Do not care to know whether He exists or not; worship Him as if He existed, and were present." Kept: «Верь в бога, служи ему» (believe in God, serve him), «не пытайся познать его сущность» (do not try to know his essence), and «Не заботься даже о том, чтобы узнать, существует он или нет» (do not even care to learn whether he exists or not), where Tolstoy adds «даже» (even). Changed: "thou wilt have nothing for thy trouble except the labour of inquiry" becomes «ты ничего не получишь от твоего тщетного усилия, кроме разочарования и усталости» (you will get nothing from your vain effort but disappointment and weariness); "present" becomes «везде присутствует» (present everywhere). Added: «Больше ничего не нужно» (nothing more is needed). The Greek: "Believe in God and worship him, but do not seek; for you have nothing more than the seeking. Whether he is or is not, do not wish to learn; worship him always as being and present." Ramage's scan garbles the second and third lines ("yap", "Bir ἐστιν"), so only the first and fourth are quoted. In «Для души» (1909), from the June of На каждый день, Tolstoy shortened it to two sentences, «не старайся узнать его» (do not try to know him) and «служи ему, как будто он есть всегда и во всем» (serve him as though he is always and in everything). The Jubilee index gives «Филемон» (vol. 42, p. 13).
Adds “Blessed, too, is death,” which is not in Amiel, and turns the close: that the angels need neither birth nor death “because their life is heavenly” becomes “but for men both the one and the other are necessary, inevitable.”
Original · translated by Mrs. Humphry Ward
Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.
Blessed be childhood for the good that it does, and for the good which it brings about carelessly and unconsciously by simply making us love it and letting itself be loved.
The angels have no need of birth and death as foundations for their life, because their life is heavenly.
TolstoyТолстой
Благословенно детство, которое среди жестокости земли дает хоть немного неба. Эти восемьдесят тысяч ежедневных рождений, о которых говорит статистика, составляют как бы излияния невинности и свежести, которая борется не только против уничтожения рода, но и против человеческой испорченности и всеобщего заражения грехом. Все добрые чувства, вызываемые около колыбели и детства, составляют одну из тайн великого провидения; уничтожьте вы эту освежающую росу, и вихрь эгоистических страстей как огнем высушит человеческое общество.
Если предположить, что человечество состояло бы из миллиарда бессмертных существ, число которых не могло бы ни увеличиваться, ни уменьшаться, где бы мы были и что бы мы были, великий боже! Мы стали бы, без сомнения, в тысячу раз ученее, но и в тысячу раз хуже. Знание накопилось бы, но все добродетели, которые зарождаются от страданий и преданности, т. е. семья и общество, были бы мертвы. Не было бы возмещения.
Благословенно детство за то благо, которое оно дает само, и за то добро, которое оно производит, не зная и не желая этого, только заставляя, позволяя себя любить. Только благодаря ему мы видим на земле частичку рая. Благословенна и смерть. Ангелы не могут нуждаться ни в рождении, ни в смерти для того, чтобы жить; но для людей необходимо, неизбежно и то и другое.
Blessed is childhood, which amid the cruelty of the earth gives at least a little of heaven. These eighty thousand daily births of which statistics speak are, as it were, outpourings of innocence and of a freshness that struggles not only against the destruction of the race but also against human corruption and the universal contagion of sin. All the good feelings called forth around the cradle and childhood are one of the mysteries of great Providence; destroy this refreshing dew, and the whirlwind of selfish passions will parch human society as if by fire.
If we suppose that humanity consisted of a billion immortal beings whose number could neither increase nor decrease, where would we be and what would we be, great God! We would no doubt become a thousand times more learned, but also a thousand times worse. Knowledge would accumulate, but all the virtues that are born of suffering and devotion, that is, the family and society, would be dead. There would be no compensation.
Blessed is childhood for the good that it gives of itself, and for the goodness it brings forth without knowing or wishing it, only by making itself loved, by letting itself be loved. Only thanks to it do we see on earth a little piece of paradise. Blessed, too, is death. Angels can have no need of either birth or death in order to live; but for men both the one and the other are necessary, inevitable.
From Fragments d'un journal intime · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · FrenchBénie soit l'enfance qui met un peu de ciel entre les rudesses terrestres.
Ce qu'il se fait de bons sentiments autour des berceaux et de l'enfance est un des secrets de la Providence générale ; supprimez cette rosée rafraîchissante, et la mêlée des passions égoïstes desséchera comme le feu la société humaine.
Bénie soit l'enfance pour le bien qu'elle fait et pour le bien qu'elle occasionne, sans le savoir et sans le vouloir, en se faisant aimer, en se laissant aimer.
Les anges n'ont pas besoin de la naissance et de la mort pour supporter la vie, parce que leur vie est céleste.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1885Blessed be childhood, which brings down something of heaven into the midst of our rough earthliness.
Blessed be childhood for the good that it does, and for the good which it brings about carelessly and unconsciously by simply making us love it and letting itself be loved.
The angels have no need of birth and death as foundations for their life, because their life is heavenly.
Source text: gutenberg.orgDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Fragments d'un journal intime, Journal, 26 janvier 1868 (Geneva: Georg, 1887, t. II, pp. 14–15); Ward's translation, January 26, 1868.
The whole entry for 26 January 1868, kept close through its first two paragraphs and changed at its end. Tolstoy leaves out Amiel's sentence on fatherhood and motherhood ('Sans la paternité, sans la maternité, je crois que l'amour lui-même ne suffirait pas à empêcher des hommes immortels de s'entre-dévorer'), adds «Благословенна и смерть» (blessed too is death), which is not in Amiel, and turns the last sentence around: Amiel's 'Les anges n'ont pas besoin de la naissance et de la mort pour supporter la vie, parce que leur vie est céleste' (the angels need neither birth nor death to bear life, because their life is heavenly) becomes «Ангелы не могут нуждаться ни в рождении, ни в смерти для того, чтобы жить; но для людей необходимо, неизбежно и то и другое» (angels cannot need either birth or death in order to live; but for people both are necessary, inevitable). Smaller changes: 'entre les rudesses terrestres' (amid earthly harshness) is «среди жестокости земли» (amid the cruelty of the earth); 'la gangrène universelle du péché' (the universal gangrene of sin) is «всеобщего заражения грехом» (the universal infection of sin); 'la Providence générale' is «великого провидения» (great providence); 'Le peu de paradis que nous apercevons encore sur la terre est dû à sa présence' becomes «Только благодаря ему мы видим на земле частичку рая» (only thanks to it do we see a particle of paradise on earth). Mrs. M. L. Tolstaya's Russian selection, «Из дневника Амиеля» (Посредник; the Jubilee list of the Circle's sources names the 1901 printing), was not found online.
Adds a sentence of Tolstoy’s own, “Liberation from falsehood is the preaching of truth”; the knowledge “that a thing is false” becomes the knowledge “that what is passed off as truth is falsehood,” and “the man who harbors it” becomes “the one who takes it for truth.”
Original · translated by T. Bailey Saunders
To free a man from error is to give, not to take away.
Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth.
Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.
TolstoyТолстой
Освободить человека от заблуждений — это значит придать ему нечто, а не отнять. Освобождение от лжи есть проповедание истины; знание того, что выдаваемое за истину есть ложь, — есть истина. Заблуждение всегда вредит. Рано или поздно оно сделает вред тому, кто признает его за истину.
To free a man from errors is to give him something, not to take something away. Liberation from falsehood is the preaching of truth; the knowledge that what is passed off as truth is falsehood is itself truth. Error always does harm. Sooner or later it will harm the one who takes it for truth.
From Parerga und Paralipomena II · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · GermanEinen von einem Irrthum befreien heißt nicht ihm et⸗ was nehmen, ſondern geben: denn die Erkenntniß, daß etwas falſch ſei, iſt eben eine Wahrheit.
Kein Irrthum aber iſt un⸗ ſchädlich; ſondern jeder wird früher oder ſpäter Dem, der ihn hegt, Unheil bereiten.
Source text: archive.orgIn English · T. Bailey Saunders, 1889To free a man from error is to give, not to take away.
Knowledge that a thing is false is a truth.
Error always does harm; sooner or later it will bring mischief to the man who harbors it.
Source text: gutenberg.orgTolstoy’s own version · На каждый деньОсвободить человека от заблуждений — это значит придать ему нечто, а не отнять.
Сознание того, что что-нибудь ложно, есть уже сознание истины.
Ошибка всегда приносит человеку вред; рано или поздно, но она повредит тому человеку, который придерживается ее.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Parerga und Paralipomena II (1851), ch. XV (Ueber Religion), § 174 (Ein Dialog), words of Philalethes, Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. II (Berlin: Hayn, 1851), p. 287; Saunders's English, Religion: A Dialogue.
Philalethes' answer in Schopenhauer's dialogue on religion, with a sentence added. Schopenhauer: to free someone from an error is not to take something from him but to give, for the knowledge that something is false is itself a truth; no error is harmless, every one will sooner or later bring harm on him who harbors it. Tolstoy adds a second sentence, «Освобождение от лжи есть проповедание истины» (liberation from a lie is the preaching of truth), and writes «знание того, что выдаваемое за истину есть ложь, — есть истина» (the knowledge that what is passed off as truth is a lie is truth) for “die Erkenntniß, daß etwas falsch sei, ist eben eine Wahrheit” (the knowledge that something is false is itself a truth), «Заблуждение всегда вредит» (error always does harm) for “Kein Irrthum aber ist unschädlich” (but no error is harmless), and «тому, кто признает его за истину» (to him who takes it for truth) for “Dem, der ihn hegt” (to him who harbors it). Saunders's English also turns the negative into “Error always does harm”. In «На каждый день» (20 February, no. 8) Tolstoy printed the passage without the added sentence and closer to the German (tolstoy). The words are Philalethes', the speaker who argues Schopenhauer's side; the passage is not in Lichtstrahlen.
Adds a closing question of Tolstoy’s own, “But what justification can there be for us in our time?”, the point Plutarch goes on to make, and “but from need”; the first meat-eaters’ “lawless desires,” as Williams, whom Tolstoy follows, renders Plutarch (Goodwin: “lawless and extravagant lusts”), become “indulging their whims.” †
Original · translated by William Baxter, revised by William W. Goodwin (Plutarch’s Morals, vol. V)
And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them, brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against Nature.
TolstoyТолстой
Извинением для тех жалких существ, которые первые прибегли к мясоедению, может служить полное отсутствие и недостаток средств для жизни, так как они (первобытные народы) приобрели кровожадные привычки не из потворства своим прихотям и не для того, чтобы предаться ненормальному сластолюбию среди избытка всего необходимого, а из нужды. Но какое может быть оправдание нам в наше время?
The complete absence and lack of the means of life may serve as an excuse for those wretched beings who first resorted to meat-eating, since they (primitive peoples) acquired their bloodthirsty habits not from indulging their whims, and not in order to give themselves up to unnatural voluptuousness amid an abundance of all necessities, but from need. But what justification can there be for us in our time?
From De esu carnium · reworded by Tolstoy .
What Tolstoy read · Howard Williams, The Ethics of Diet: A Catena of Authorities Deprecatory of the Practice…For the wretches who first applied to flesh-eating may justly be alleged in excuse their utter resourcelessness and destitution, inasmuch as it was not to indulge in lawless desires, or amidst the superfluities of necessaries, …
… indulgence in unnatural luxuries that they [the primeval peoples] betook themselves to carnivorous habits.
Source text: archive.orgOriginal · Ancient Greek… ἢ τοῖς μὲν πρώτοις ἐκείνοις ἐπιχειρήσασι σαρκοφαγεῖν τὴν αἰτίαν ἂν εἴποι τις πᾶσαν εἶναι τὴν ἀπορίαν· οὐ γὰρ ἐπιθυμίαις ἀνόμοις συνδιάγοντες οὐδʼ ἐν περιουσίᾳ τινὶ ἀναγκαίων ὑβρίσαντες εἰς ἡδονὰς παρὰ φύσιν ἀσυμφύλους ἐπὶ ταῦτʼ ἦλθον·
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · William Baxter, revised by William W. Goodwin (Plutarch’s Morals, vol. V), 1874And truly, as for those people who first ventured upon eating of flesh, it is very probable that the whole reason of their so doing was scarcity and want of other food; for it is not likely that their living together in lawless and extravagant lusts, or their growing wanton and capricious through the excessive variety of provisions then among them, brought them to such unsociable pleasures as these, against Nature.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. De esu carnium (On the Eating of Flesh) I, ch. 2 (993c–d).
Signed «По Плутарху» (after Plutarch): Williams's sentence translated, and a question of Tolstoy's own added. Williams: "For the wretches who first applied to flesh-eating may justly be alleged in excuse their utter resourcelessness and destitution, inasmuch as it was not to indulge in lawless desires, or amidst the superfluities of necessaries, for the pleasure of wanton indulgence in unnatural luxuries that they [the primeval peoples] betook themselves to carnivorous habits." «Те жалкие существа» (those wretched beings) is "the wretches", «полное отсутствие и недостаток средств для жизни» (complete want and lack of the means of life) "utter resourcelessness and destitution", «среди избытка всего необходимого» "amidst the superfluities of necessaries", and «(первобытные народы)» Williams's bracket "[the primeval peoples]". Changed: "lawless desires" (ἐπιθυμίαις ἀνόμοις) becomes «потворства своим прихотям» (indulging their whims), "unnatural luxuries" «ненормальному сластолюбию» (abnormal voluptuousness), and «из нужды» (out of need) is added. Added at the end: «Но какое может быть оправдание нам в наше время?» (but what justification can there be for us in our time?), the point Plutarch goes on to make in the speech he gives the first men. Williams's scan reads "for^the".
Adds opening sentences of Tolstoy’s own, that a man’s thoughts do not show how he would act nor his deeds why he acts, the proverb “another’s soul is darkness,” and a conclusion, “man cannot judge man,” where Epictetus says to commend a man “on account of his opinions”; labor referred to one’s own ruling power becomes laboring “for his soul — for God.” †
Original · translated by George Long
For this reason I cannot call the man industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and writes; and even if a man adds that he reads all night, I cannot say so, if he knows not to what he should refer his reading.
For neither do you say that a man is industrious if he keeps awake for a girl;
And if he does it for money, I say that he is a lover of money, not a lover of labour;
then only do I say that he is industrious. For never commend a man on account of these things which are common to all, but on account of his opinions (principles);
TolstoyТолстой
По тем мыслям, которые человек высказывает, нельзя судить о том, как он поступал бы на деле. Также и наоборот: по делам человека очень трудно судить о том, ради чего он так поступает, какие у него в голове мысли, а в душе побуждения. Если я вижу, что человек без устали хлопочет, читает, пишет или работает с утра до ночи, или даже просиживает за своей работой целые ночи напролет, то я еще не скажу, что человек этот любит трудиться, или трудится ради пользы людей, если я не знаю, зачем он всё это делает. Ведь никто не скажет про человека, который по целым ночам кутит с распутными женщинами, что он полезен или что он любит трудиться. И не только скверные, но как будто и прекрасные дела часто делаются ради скверных целей, например, из-за денег или ради славы; и нельзя сказать про человека, поступающего так, что он трудолюбив и полезен, как бы неутомимо он ни работал и какие бы громкие дела ни совершал. Я скажу про человека, что он любит труд и полезен людям только тогда, когда узнаю, что он трудится для души своей — для бога.
Но чужая душа — потемки. Как же я узнаю внутренние побуждения человека, известные только ему самому?
И выходит, что человек не может судить человека, т. е. осуждать или оправдывать его, ни хвалить, ни порицать.
From the thoughts a man expresses, one cannot judge how he would act in deed. And the reverse as well: from a man’s deeds it is very hard to judge for what reason he acts so, what thoughts are in his head and what motives in his soul. If I see that a man bustles about tirelessly, reads, writes, or works from morning till night, or even sits over his work whole nights through, I still will not say that this man loves to labor, or labors for the benefit of people, if I do not know why he does all this. For no one will say of a man who carouses whole nights through with dissolute women that he is useful or that he loves to labor. And not only vile deeds, but deeds that seem fine as well, are often done for vile ends, for money, for instance, or for fame; and one cannot say of a man who acts in this way that he is industrious and useful, however untiringly he may work and whatever resounding deeds he may accomplish. I will say of a man that he loves labor and is useful to people only when I learn that he labors for his soul — for God.
But another’s soul is darkness. How then am I to know the inner motives of a man, which are known only to himself?
And so it turns out that man cannot judge man, that is, condemn or justify him, or praise or blame him.
From Discourses · reworded by Tolstoy .
Original · Ancient Greek… διὰ τοῦτο οὐ δύναμαι εἰπεῖν φιλόπονον, ἂν ἀκούσω τοῦτο μόνον, ὅτι ἀναγιγνώσκει ἢ γράφει, κἂν προσθῇ τις, ὅτι ὅλας τὰς νύκτας, οὔπω λέγω, ἂν μὴ γνῶ τὴν ἀναφοράν. οὐδὲ γὰρ σὺ λέγεις φιλόπονον τὸν διὰ παιδισκάριον ἀγρυπνοῦντα· οὐ τοίνυν οὐδʼ ἐγώ.
… ἀλλʼ ἐὰν μὲν ἕνεκα δόξης αὐτὸ ποιῇ, λέγω φιλόδοξον, ἂν δʼ ἕνεκα ἀργυρίου, φιλάργυρον, οὐ φιλόπονον.
… ἂν δʼ ἐπὶ τὸ ἴδιον ἡγεμονικὸν ἀναφέρῃ τὸν πόνον, ἵνʼ ἐκεῖνο κατὰ φύσιν ἔχῃ καὶ διεξάγῃ, τότε λέγω μόνον φιλόπονον.
… μηδέποτε γὰρ ἀπὸ τῶν κοινῶν μήτʼ ἐπαινεῖτε μήτε ψέγετε, ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ δογμάτων.
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comIn English · George Long, 1890For this reason I cannot call the man industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and writes; and even if a man adds that he reads all night, I cannot say so, if he knows not to what he should refer his reading.
For neither do you say that a man is industrious if he keeps awake for a girl; …
And if he does it for money, I say that he is a lover of money, not a lover of labour; …
… then only do I say that he is industrious. For never commend a man on account of these things which are common to all, but on account of his opinions (principles); …
Source text: raw.githubusercontent.comTolstoy’s own version · Мысли мудрых людей на каждый деньПо тем мыслям, которые человек высказывает, нельзя судить о том, как он поступал бы с нами на деле.
Я скажу про человека, что он любит труд и полезен людям только тогда, когда узнаю, что он трудится для души своей — для бога и людей.
Source text: tolstoy.ruDetails
The words shown were found, word for word, in the saved source text. Discourses, IV.4.41–44.
Thoughts of Wise Men (1903), 26 May, with «с нами» (towards us) dropped from the first sentence and «и людей» (and for men) from «для бога и людей» (for God and men) at the end of the first paragraph; the 1903 Epictetus came from Chertkov's «Римский мудрец Эпиктет» (Posrednik), not consulted. The core is Discourses IV.4.41–44: "For this reason I cannot call the man industrious, if I hear this only, that he reads and writes; and even if a man adds that he reads all night, I cannot say so, if he knows not to what he should refer his reading. For neither do you say that a man is industrious if he keeps awake for a girl ... if he does it for reputation, I say that he is a lover of reputation. And if he does it for money, I say that he is a lover of money, not a lover of labour ... if he refers his labour to his own ruling power, that he may keep it in a state conformable to nature ..., then only do I say that he is industrious. For never commend a man on account of these things which are common to all, but on account of his opinions (principles)." Changed: Epictetus's "industrious" (φιλόπονος, a lover of labour) becomes «любит трудиться, или трудится ради пользы людей» (loves to work, or works for the good of men), «полезен» (useful) and «трудолюбив» (hard-working); the girl becomes «кутит с распутными женщинами» (carouses with loose women); and the test, labour referred to one's own ruling part (τὸ ἴδιον ἡγεμονικόν), becomes «трудится для души своей — для бога» (works for his soul, for God). Added: the opening sentences, that a man's thoughts do not show how he would act nor his deeds why he acts; the proverb «чужая душа — потемки» (another's soul is darkness); and the conclusion that man cannot judge man, condemn or justify, praise or blame, where Epictetus says only that praise and blame should rest on a man's principles.
† An intermediate translation may have made this change.Это изменение мог сделать промежуточный перевод. * Possibly Tolstoy’s misreading.Возможно, Толстой неверно прочел подлинник.